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THE MANITOBAN 


























































































































































































































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Copyright, 1904 
By John Lane 


~PZ 

l<f 1 


j LIBRARY of CONGRESS] 
Two Copies Received 

NOV 15 1904 

Copyright Entry 
' ( 0~v. 2J / t cy o 
t CL *SS cv' XXc. mT ' 

| / 7 3 0 o 

COPY B. 



First Edition, November, 1 904 



Set up and electrotyped by 
The Publishers Printing Co. 
New York, U. S. A. 


To 

M. E. S. 

This Book is humbly Dedicated 


¥ 


And I would sing the song of all creation , 

A brave sky and a glad wind , blowing by, 
A clear trail and an hour for meditation , 

A long day and the joy to make it fly, 

A hard task and the muscle to achieve it, 

A fierce noon and a well-contented gloam , 

A good strife and no great regret to leave it, 
A still night and the far red lights of home . 







CONTENTS 


I. The Book of His Boyhood 

II. The Book of His Birthright 

III. The Book of His Kingdom 





















































THE BOOK OF HIS BOYHOOD 


I 









I 


A windy river, dimpled with sunlight, bor- 
dered by deep meadows, and guarded by great 
swaying woods; a towing-path, green and fra- 
grant ; a hedge stretching down to the water, 
broken by a gate half open; an afternoon of 
May, and she in her red tam-o’-shanter with her 
sweet grave lips : 

“ And you are really going? ” 

The brown eyes were darker than usual, for 
this was sorrow, and she had not known what it 
meant until to-day. 

“ Really going.” 

He lifted his head hopefully, drawing a deep 
breath of the sweet spring air, and there was 
triumph in his utterance. 

Then he looked into the face of the girl before 
him. 

She had not grown to hide her feelings, and 
even his callow eyes could read the pain there. 
He was verging on earliest manhood, the 
manhood that looks out upon the world with 
little more than sixth-form understanding, a 
little superior, a little suspicious, wholly confi- 
dent. 


3 


The Manitoban 

And she was only a child. 

Nevertheless her sorrow stirred him strangely. 
He stooped by the river and plucked a cuckoo- 
flower, sticking it boyishly into her frock, as 
he had been wont to do; but to-day the ac- 
tion seemed strangely more significant, almost 
sacred. 

“To Canada? ” 

He laughed. 

“ Don’t be tragic, Ethel,” he said. “ It’s not 
the grave, or even the goal — it’s what I’ve 
longed for ever since I can remember. It’s the 
goal of my desires. And it will be just the sort 
of life I love. And in time I’ll get land, and 
cattle, and wheat, and all that, you know, and 
perhaps become a big man out there, and then 
I’ll come back and — and ” 

He pulled up suddenly, for these unuttered 
dreams demanded a more serious consideration. 
And so they stood silent awhile by the gate 
across the towing-path, under the kind old trees, 
that had heard so many secrets, and held them 
all inviolate. 

The morning had been like many mornings 
of holidays unnumbered. 

They had strolled round the garden, the farm 
yard, and the orchard. 

He had admired the tortoise, and the rabbits, 
and the pony ; he had scoffed at her tennis, and 
4 


The Book of His Boyhood 

she had proved her superiority in finding bird’s 
nests, his eyes being dulled by the long term’s 
lack of practice. And then, at lunch, the great 
news had come, and he had been exultant as the 
gates of this promised land had swung open be- 
fore him, with its visions of limitless prairies and 
its glamour of galloping and gold. This morn- 
ing they had rambled about, quarrelling at times, 
occasionally at one, mutually recriminating, 
scolding, admiring, as old comrades should. 

It was hardly thinkable that three words could 
make so great a difference, raise so strange and 
nebulous a barrier, forcing self-revelations upon 
them, that held them thus in a silence half 
ashamed. And on such an afternoon too, so 
golden and debonnair and buoyant, so evidently 
unfitted to be taken seriously. 

Why think about to-morrow and the next 
day? 

“ Come on down to the back-water and stir 
up the moor hens. It’s a beastly shame to waste 
the whole afternoon, and see, the boys have left 
the boat by the willows. Don’t look so melan- 
choly.” 

She threw back the hair from her forehead. 
“ I’m not melancholy. I’m so glad — you’ve got 
what you wanted. I — hope you’ll have lots of 
riding, and all that, and that they won’t work 
you too hard.” 


5 


The Manitoban 

He paddled the old boat leisurely down the 
stream. 

“ I don’t care how hard I work at that sort of 
thing, you know.” 

She nodded. A hatred of books was com- 
mon to these two, and both bore the comeliness 
bestowed by sun and wind. 

Presently: 

“ I say, Ethel ! ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ You — you’ll write to a fellow sometimes.?” 

She was still a child ; but the woman in her 
was quickening already. 

“ I’m awfully bad at letters,” she murmured. 

His voice grew insistent. 

“ But it doesn’t matter about grammar and 
spelling and composition, and all that, when you 
write to me.” 

Silence again. 

“ Letters will be pretty welcome out there, I 
expect,” he said. 

And again this strange perplexing silence, 
punctuated by the rumble of the oars against 
the rowlocks. 

At last he rested, letting the boat drift at 
will. 

“You know, Ethel,” he said, solemnly, “I 
think this is the greatest day of my life so far — 
greater than the day I got my footer colours, 
6 


The Book of His Boyhood 

greater than the day when I made my first fifty 
for the eleven, greater than any of them, for it’s 
sort of beginning the real thing, you see. And 
I’m gladder — gladder than I’ve ever been about 
anything.” He spoke boyishly, and paused, 
boyishly ashamed of his want of reticence, and 
not quite sure of the truth of his words. And 
was he after all so very glad ? 

Fragrance of wind, fragrance of river, fra- 
grance of wood, a white sail far up the stream, 
bellying to the wind, a red tam-o’-shanter 
against the bending willows, two serious brown 
eyes. 

“ It’ll be jolly hard to leave home. I shall be 
— be beastly sorry, you know.” 

He spoke slowly, as if the thought had been a 
new one, though it had lurked in the background 
of his mind all the afternoon. 

“ So — so you won’t forget to write ? ” 

She shook her head. 

“ I won’t forget — ever,” she said. 

And they shook hands over the bargain as 
good comrades should. 

The strange afternoon wore slowly to its red 
and golden close. 

In the twilight Charlie pulled the old boat 
into the house at the end of the garden. Here 
their ways parted — his to the rectory, half a mile 
away, her’s to her home, close at hand. 


The Manitoban 

“ You’ll be late for tea, Ethel,” he said. 

“ I don’t care.” 

He laughed, dropping back into his old 
manner. 

“ I don’t ” 

“ Hush ! They are calling you.” The sound 
of a voice came down to them through the dusk, 
but Charlie held her arms, and to-night she did 
not struggle with him. 

“ Don’t hurry. You — you’re looking quite 
pretty to-night, Ethel.” 

Then he stooped and kissed her cheek. 

“ Gold and galloping, fame and fortune ” 

the dreams crowded back to his mind again, too 
sweet surely for imprisonment. 

Through the gates ajar, the possibilities 
seemed so probable — nay, almost already within 
grasp. 

So he told her about them, asking presently 
for a promise. 

Then he kissed her again. 

“Good night.” 

“ Good night.” 

She ran up the path, for the voice had grown 
commanding, and Charlie turned thoughtfully 
homewards, already not quite sure of himself. 

“ For she’s such a child,” he said. 

Nevertheless he stooped and picked a second 
cuckoo-flower. 


8 


The Book of His Boyhood 

It seemed clean and strong, and had been 
blowing healthily by the pathway, and he put it 
in his buttonhole, meaning to keep it for remem- 
brance’ sake. 

But he was busy next day and forgot about it. 


9 




/ 













































































































































































































































■r 



































II 


Over Carroll, asleep on its single line of rail- 
way, the June sun hung merciless and unblink- 
ing, nor was there on any horizon a cloud that 
might presently veil its brilliance. 

The great world, golden and brown, rolling 
lazily through the hot hours, stretched itself into 
sleepy distances, purple and indefinite. 

A few farm-houses, scattered sparsely over the 
bosom of the prairie, shone white and unpictur- 
esque, backed by log stables and low stacks of 
last year’s hay. 

Far down the line a little cloud of smoke and 
dust and the twinkle of metal revealed the 
approach of the day’s express. 

It seemed to be travelling drowsily over the 
sunburned plains. 

In the station yard a tired bronco stood 
motionless between the shafts of a buggy, the 
two flinging a sharp-cut shadow on the white 
dust. 

On the platform, four or five men, blue-shirted, 
with broad hats, lounged impassively, giving no 
signs of life, save for an occasional expectoration 
of brown tobacco-juice. 


The Manitoban 

And they were waiting for the day’s chiefest 
event. 

And when at last the great engine panted 
up beside the platform, with its bell swinging 
and a considerable commotion of brakes and 
steam, the passengers who alighted were only 
two. 

The one, a wrinkled old farmer, self-conscious 
in a boiled shirt, with a stiff collar, and a tie of 
many colours, nodded to the watchers in the 
shadow, and presently mounted the waiting 
buggy. The other, a lad, fresh-coloured, but 
pale by contrast to his swarthy observers, wear- 
ing a collar unknown to Carroll, and neatly clad 
in a flannel suit that was obviously foreign, 
stood undecided on the wooden platform. 
Somebody spat. 

“ Reg’lar dude,” he observed slowly. 

The others were silent, regarding the passen- 
ger with grave eyes. 

Presently he summoned up courage. 

“ Is there a porter anywhere ” ? he asked. 

For a minute no one replied. Then a voice 
appealed to the silence. 

“ Is there a portah anywhe-ah ? ” 

There was the faintest gleam of teeth round 
the little circle, but nobody laughed. 

Charlie grew uncomfortable. 

Life had become a little bewildering on these 
14 


The Book of His Boyhood 

great plains, nor did these silent Canadians 
seem willing to solve its immediate problems. 

“ How am I to get to Mr. Luke’s? ” he asked 
again, addressing the nearest. 

“Are you goin’ to work fer old man Luke?” 
he asked. 

“Yes.” 

He looked round with a smile. 

“You’ll like it,” he said. 

“ It’s like heaven,” said another. 

“ There’s no night there,” observed a third. 

Charlie looked from one to another, at the 
lean hard faces, the grave eyes, the white teeth, 
and he grew red, his heart sinking strangely. 
He felt very insignificant and alone facing 
this new phase of life. Then a fresh voice 
behind him asked cheerfully: 

“ Are you lookin’ fer old man Luke? ” 

Charlie turned round quickly, glad to recog- 
nize a friendly tone. He looked into blue eyes 
at a little lower level than his own ; they laughed 
at him above a pair of ruddy brown cheeks. 

“Yes,” he said. 

“ Well, I guess the old man ain’t in town, but 
Jack Luke’s hitchin’ up right now at the livery. 
I’ll show you.” 

Charlie looked at him gratefully, a robust little 
figure, clad solely in a white cotton shirt, rolled 
up at the elbows over a pair of sturdy brown 
i5 


The Manitoban 

arms, and an ancient pair of knickerbockers sur- 
mounting dusty brown legs. 

His bare feet were well apart, and his hands 
thrust comfortably into his pockets. He ap- 
peared to be surveying the little group of loungers 
behind Charlie with the profoundest contempt. 

“ What’s the good o’ askin’ them ? ” he ques- 
tioned. “ Eh — what’s the good o’ askin’ them ? 
They’re no good anyway, not one o’ them. 
They’re just bummers.” 

“You take care, young Roddy, or you’ll die 
sudden,” said one. 

Roddy swept him with a pitying glance. 

“Well, I guess that’s better’n dyin’ o’ over- 
eatin’, an’ doin’ nothin’,” he observed pointedly. 
And at this there was a roar of laughter. He 
grasped Charlie’s arm. 

“ Come on,” he said, “ or we won’t catch him.” 

They crossed the station yard, Roddy’s feet 
falling silently in the hot dust. 

“ I say it’s awfully good of you,” began Charlie, 
but Roddy interrupted him. 

“ That’s my nature,” he observed compla- 
cently.” Then with a sideway glance at Char- 
lie’s brown boots and flannel suit, “Just come 
from the old country?” 

“Yes.” 

Roddy grinned, but made no further comment 
until they had crossed the road — Carroll’s one 
16 


The Book of His Boyhood 

thoroughfare, known magnificently as Main 
street; then: 

“ I’m Roddy Laville,” he said. “ What’s your 
name ? ” 

“ Charlie West.” 

“Well, Charlie, I guess you’ll have to hustle 
some at old man Luke’s. He’s a fair terror.” 

But Charlie smiled. He was getting his sixth- 
form confidence back again, and this barelegged 
youngster of fifteen was not going to frighten 
him. 

“ That’s all right,” he said. 

“ He works his hired men terrible, ’specially 
greenhorns.” 

Charlie winced at the offensive word, and for 
a moment felt inclined to resent it. But reflec- 
tion bade him cherish this first friend of his. 

“ He’ll make you saw,” continued Roddy. 

“Saw?” 

“Yes. He’s always got wood on hand to 
break his greenhorns in, even in summer time. 
An’ till you can plough there’s nothin’ else 
goin’ till hayin’. There’s on’y breakin’ an’ 
fallow, an’ his own boys does that, I guess. 
He’s keepin’ you for hayin’ an’ harvest.” 

Charlie looked at his companion, envious of 
his knowledge. 

“ Can you plough? ” he asked. 

Roddy grinned. 


i7 


The Manitoban 

“ Well, I should smile,” he said. 

In the yard before the livery stable a young 
man was hitching up a pony, stooping over the 
traces. 

The little mare was slender and sorrel, stand- 
ing impatiently, with ears drawn back. 

“That’s Jack Luke’s driver — she’s a daisy,” 
said Roddy, screwing up his blue eyes and look- 
ing admiringly at her slender, lean flanks and 
trim expectant hoofs. 

The young man heard him and looked over 
his shoulder. 

“ Hullo, Roddy! How’s yourself?” he said. 

Roddy was obviously prospering. 

“ Here’s your greenhorn,” he observed, indi- 
cating Charlie, whose face was pink and flushed 
under his straw hat. 

Jack Luke rose, with one hand on the mare’s 
back, and looked silently at this newcomer. 

His gaze travelled seriously from the straw 
hat with the school colours upon its ribbon to 
the brown boots, well made and spotless, and 
back again to Charlie’s half angry eyes. 

Then he held out a brown hand. 

“ I’m glad to see you.” 

“ His name’s Charlie,” interposed Roddy. 

“ I’m glad you’ve come, Charlie. Father’ll be 
surprised some. We didn’t expect you this 
week; but it’s all right. I’m glad you’ve come.” 

18 


The Book of His Boyhood 

They shook hands, and Charlie climbed up 
into the buckboard. 

“ Hold her nose a minute, Roddy,” said Jack, 
lifting up Charlie’s bag and some scattered 
parcels of his own. 

The little mare, impatient to be gone, and 
recognizing the strange hand upon her bridle 
began pawing the dust, shifting restlessly in the 
light harness. 

A hard hoof fell suddenly upon Roddy’s bare 
toes, and the boy jumped back with a sudden 
shout, still holding the bridle. Then with an 
eloquent abandon he reviled the mare and all 
her ancestors, consigning the whole company to 
so lurid a destiny that Charlie gazed at him 
open-mouthed, almost shuddering. 

Jack Luke listened impassively. 

“You should be spryer with them feet o’ 
yours, Roddy,” he said. “ An’ you swear terri- 
ble fer a young ’un.” 

Roddy laughed, the white teeth shining 
wholesomely in his round face. 

“ Blast her eyes,” he observed, looking rue- 
fully at his bruised toes. Then he handed up 
the reins. 

“So long, Jack,” he said. “Good luck, 
Charlie, an’ don’t bust yourself.” 

As they swung into the white roadway, Charlie 
looked back into the stable yard and waved his 

19 


The Manitoban 


hand, but Roddy was nursing his battered foot 
and did not see him, and thus his first friend 
passed from view. Jack Luke proved a silent 
companion, keeping his eyes upon the trail, 
watching the mare’s stride, and skilfully dodging 
the deeper ruts. 

The little town was soon behind them, the 
wooden houses with their painted fronts, the 
great elevators, the hot sidewalk, the long sta- 
bles, the strange vehicles, the loungers lean and 
satirical, Roddy, kindly and brown and blas- 
phemous, all fastened indelibly upon Charlie’s 
memory, an abiding impression above the gate- 
way of his new life. 

And now the prairie, stretching about him 
with so boundless an immensity, wrapping him 
with its incense, hot and strange and fragrant, 
spread before his eyes in a mosaic of gold and 
emerald, treeless utterly, save for an occasional 
bluff of silver poplars — oh ! it was a wonderful 
day that laid this new world at his feet. 

For the first three or four miles he held his 
peace, filling his lungs with the unsullied air, gain- 
ing a gradual strange exhilaration as their way 
lay deeper into the plains. Occasionally, pass- 
ing a team at work on prairie or summer fallow, 
Jack would pull up to exchange a word with 
some sunburned comrade, who would lean with 
brawny arms upon the side of the buckboard, 
20 


The Book of His Boyhood 

talking leisurely, and with the soft burr and lin- 
gering r’s that fell so curiously upon Charlie’s 
English ears. 

Once a bright-eyed gopher, lithe and yellow, 
flashed across the trail, and Charlie asked what 
it was, leaning out with eager eyes to watch its 
progress. Jack smiled, telling briefly what he 
knew about it, and this, loosening their tongues, 
led to a long succession of queries and replies, 
given eagerly and responded to with the slow 
gravity that seemed to characterize all men’s 
speech upon these great plains. 

Twelve miles from Carroll they drove by 
a little lake, blue and quiet, surrounded by a 
clump of stunted oaks and slender poplars, and 
the trail led through a farmyard, passing be- 
tween a low log house and some crooked sod- 
roofed stables. Two or three children, with 
flaxen hair, looked at them curiously, and Jack 
waved his whip to them. 

“ Icelanders,” he observed briefly. And in 
answer to Charlie’s question, told him that there 
were many of these people settled hereabouts. 
On a low hill behind them a little wooden build- 
ing shone in the sun, and Jack explained that it 
was their Lutheran chapel. 

On later Sabbaths Charlie saw many of them, 
gaily clad, travelling in wagons, gathering by 
various trails to their worship in the wooden 
21 


The Manitoban 


church. Two miles further on they swung 
round once more beside a great field of rising 
wheat, lusty and strong and burdened with 
promise. Jack’s eyes grew proud, and Charlie 
learned that they had reached their destination. 
On a low hillside two teams were at work upon 
the virgin prairie, driven by Jack’s younger 
brothers, and Charlie could see their white 
shirts gleaming as they walked slowly down the 
furrows behind the heavy oaken ploughs. 

A little distance away stood the house, log- 
built, below, but wooden and shingle-roofed. 

Stacked neatly in the yard was a large pile of 
wood, cut and split and arranged in tiers, and 
beside it a load or two of uncut poplars. On the 
saw-horse gleamed a buck-saw, and an axe with 
a twisted handle lay half buried in chips under 
the shadow of the wood-pile. 

As they drove up, a small boy came out of the 
stables, greeting Jack, gazing gravely at Charlie, 
and in the doorway of the house lounged a 
half-grown girl, barefooted, with tangled hair 
and frank eyes. 

At the sound of their arrival her mother, 
thin-faced and kindly, joined her and stood 
blinking out upon them, guarding her eyes 
from the sunlight slanting down between the 
buildings. 

“This is Charlie West,” said Jack. 

22 


The Book of His Boyhood 

The old woman came out, peering up into 
Charlie’s English face as he stood, hat in hand, 
regarding his new home. 

“I’m glad you’ve come,’’ she said. “Come 
right in an’ tell me how you liked your journey. 
That’s Becca, my youngest girl. Come right 
in.” 

Charlie followed her first into the house, and 
thence, where she presently led him, into the 
lean-to kitchen. 

She was busy preparing the evening meal, but 
talked ceaselessly, giving Charlie time to survey 
his new surroundings, as he sat upon a backless 
chair watching her at work. 

They were a strange couple: she with her 
kilted skirts, bare-armed, bent above the stove ; 
he, swinging a clean straw hat, daintily clad, 
with hands unsoiled. 

So this was the log shanty of his dreams, this 
confusion of pots and pans, earth floor and 
broken windows. Looking back into the dwell- 
ing-room he found it carpetless, a dismantled 
stove, used only in the winter, dominating the 
centre of the floor. A cracked looking-glass 
and a picture of John Wesley were the solitary 
mural decorations, but a couple of guns swung 
upon the rafters under the ceiling. On the bare 
table sundry plates and knives lay prepared for 
the evening meal, and on a cupboard in the cor- 

23 


The Manitoban 

ner rested a large Bible and a copy of the Carroll 
Gazette. 

In the window stood a sewing-machine, and 
near it a stairway leading to the bedroom above. 

At home it would have been the dwelling of a 
gardener or farm-labourer, he thought, not that 
of an owner of land ; and looking round upon its 
cheerlessness his heart sank already at closer 
grips with this new democracy. 

His glance rested again on the old woman. 
Some pieces of pork lay bubbling in a large fry- 
ing-pan on one corner of the cooking stove, and 
in another she was deftly browning pancakes, 
adding them by couples to the growing pile 
upon a neighbouring plate. Her silver grey 
hair, straggling about her forehead, occasionally 
strayed into her eyes, and she would throw back 
her head, laughing at him and making apologies 
for her appearance. 

“You’ll have to get used to us,” she said, 
“ an’ it’s rough livin’ out here.” 

Charlie smiled, telling her untruthfully that he 
did not care, and she looked over her shoulder 
and smiled back at him. 

“ Now, I guess your own ma’s a bit tidier,” 
she said. 

The sudden vision of a sweet face and shawl- 
clad figure and the cool parlour of a Berkshire 
rectory that swept across his mind held him for 
24 


The Book of His Boyhood 

a moment dumb. He could almost hear the 
restful voice and the break in it as it had bidden 
him farewell. 

But the old woman’s bird-like eyes were upon 
him and she seemed to have guessed his thoughts, 
laying a gnarled hand upon his shoulder. 

“You’ll be findin’ it strange at first, Charlie,” 
she said. “ Do you like pancakes? ” 

Charlie nodded, smiling in spite of himself. 

For already to this latest child of hers the 
prairie had given her first gift of eager, healthy 
hunger, and presently, with unaccustomed hands, 
he found himself helping her, turning over the 
slabs of pork, with their inspiring, cheerful 
aroma, the immediate prospect of refreshment 
shining out of these sordid surroundings, their 
brightest feature. 

It was only when they gathered at last round 
the clothless table that the lumps of pork, fat 
and utterly salt, filled him with nausea, so that 
he was glad to stay his hunger upon hot biscuits 
and pancakes. 

The whole family had assembled round the 
supper table — the four boys and the girl, and 
they ate silently, gazing at Charlie with shy, 
furtive glances. 

To him they all seemed to be moulded on one 
pattern, built in varying scales according to their 
several ages — brown, blue-eyed, and robust. 

25 


The Manitoban 

Looking from one to another he envied the 
firm set of their jaws, their young, round muscles 
and obvious physical fitness. The talk, such as it 
was, was largely unintelligible to him, touching 
on shears and earth-boards and coulters, smack- 
ing of furrow and headland. After supper the 
old man bade him come outside, leading him to 
the wood-pile. 

“ Ever used a saw? ” 

Charlie shook his head. 

The old man jerked a poplar into the saw- 
horse, cutting off several lengths, which he pres- 
ently split with a blunt axe, Charlie watching 
him with dubious eyes. 

“ Guess you can get goin’ on that to-morrow,” 
he said, when he had finished. “We hadn’t 
time to get it all cleared up before the frost 
broke, an’ it’s got to be done by hayin’.” 

So this was to be his first work upon the 
prairie, and the prospect of it seemed utterly 
distasteful. Left to his own devices, he strolled 
down to the stables, where two of the boys were 
currying down the teams that he had seen upon 
the ploughing. 

The diffused scent of hay and straw was not 
unpleasant, and he lingered for some time, 
watching the deft hands and careless affection 
with which the boys went about their stable 
duties. When at last he came out upon the 
26 


The Book of His Boyhood 

yard again, the sound of bells fell upon his ear, 
and following the trail a little way he came upon 
the old corral, where the cows, milked some 
time before by Becca and her mother, were 
standing gratefully in the blue smoke of some 
smouldering wet straw, grunting contentedly 
and swinging lazy tails about their flanks. 

The prairie lay bathed now in a wonderful 
tender light, and already in the deepening sky 
some early stars had crept into being, shimmer- 
ing like jewels, pale and remote, in a setting 
infinitely soft. 

Here and there upon the plains, growing 
swiftly dim, lay drowsy trails of smoke, smudges 
of straw and manure, in which the cattle might 
seek refuge from mosquitoes. 

The night held no sound but the low breath- 
ing of the cows in the corral, and the croaking 
of the frogs in a slough hard by, and upon 
Charlie, leaning by the gate, the darkness and 
its vast silence fell with a strange awe and an 
irresistible sense of loneliness. It was hard to 
realize that after these long days of travel he 
had at length reached his destination. 

In the still night, some of the scenes so swiftly 
passed and already half forgotten came back to 
his mind: a concert on board, light-hearted, 
running on into the early hours ; the ephemeral 
swift camaraderie of steamer society ; the long 
27 


The Manitoban 


railway journey by the giant forests, and deep 
inland lakes; a brown tent, with a couple of 
dark-skinned Indians; Winnipeg, with its arc 
lights, and brand-new self-importance; a fight 
which he had witnessed there between two olive- 
cheeked half-breeds ; the leisurely journey over 
the plains; Carroll, with its ordeal of staring 
eyes ; Roddy and the little sorrel ; and now this 
shabby log-house, uncarpeted, sordid, and bare 
of the most primitive refinements; the old 
woman, crude and illiterate, and the barefooted 
girl, calling him Charlie with so complete an 
intimacy, accepting him with such an absolute 
familiarity as one of themselves ; already the old 
traditions were tottering, and should they fall 
about his ears what would remain to him ? Face 
to face with life on these solitary ranges, was he, 
indeed, superior to these brown-skinned young 
Canadians? Or was he an alien in this country 
with no social frontiers, infinitely below them in 
his mastery of the essentials of success ? 

These were strange thoughts, indeed, forcing 
themselves insistently on his unwilling mind. 
Well, at the worst he could go back to his 
Berkshire home. But he shut his teeth. No, 
he would never do that, never admit failure. 

Suddenly he saw a lantern wavering through 
the darkness from the stable to the house, and 
the sight of it reminded him of bed. He turned 
28 


The Book of His Boyhood 

slowly down the trail. It was all so different, 
so disappointing: to-morrow he had thought to 
gallop upon unbounded ranges, and, behold, he 
was to saw wood. 

In the bedroom which he was to share with 
two of the boys he found them already half un- 
dressed. There was, then, no evening life here, 
no fireside talk, no books, or music, or recreation. 

His bed-fellow, with down-bent head, was 
kneeling at his prayers, a habit that Charlie with 
other childish customs had given up on board. 

Evinced in this shy Canadian boy it struck 
him unexpectedly. 

Then he undressed carefully, donning a suit 
of pyjamas that brought wonder into two pairs 
of sleepy blue eyes. 

Nor did the prairie withhold from him her 
second gift of ready and dreamless slumber, and 
in a few minutes he had forgotten that after 
many days he had found his promised land. 


29 

















III 













































Ill 


Dick Blackett sat at his shanty door looking 
out meditatively upon the blue waters of Silver 
Lake. 

Down the southward trail old man Luke with 
his buckboard and pony was growing rapidly 
smaller, but the letters that he had left with 
Blackett lay unopened in his hands. 

There were but two, and the one was in a 
handwriting familiar enough. Blackett regarded 
it reverently. 

The other was addressed in a bold and daring 
style, which for the moment baffled memory. 

And yet it seemed familiar. Then he opened 
it carefully, and, catching sight of the crest and 
address, wondered suddenly at his forgetfulness, 
for who indeed could be the writer but Cyril 
Trevelyan — Trevelyan of the ardent soul, 
Trevelyan, the idealist, the social reformer? 

Blackett smiled and wondered, for though 
they had been the closest of friends at school 
and college, yet letters had been rare between 
them, and their ways in life had diverged 
strangely. 

Misfortune and bereavement had driven 
3 33 


The Manitoban 


him to Manitoba, where his lessened income 
had proved of far greater value to him, and his 
love of solitude and labour had already sent 
him far on the road to prosperity. 

But Trevelyan, leaving Cambridge, had be- 
come secretary and man of affairs to his uncle, 
Sir George Laville, banker, landowner, and 
philanthropist, and had brought all his boyish 
enthusiasm into the conduct of Sir George’s 
social schemes for his fellow men’s redemption. 

On the one or two occasions of Blackett’s 
visit to England Trevelyan’s eagerness and bril- 
liance had left him a little breathless, but had 
nevertheless always strengthened his belief in 
the honesty and loftiness of his old friend’s aims 
and purposes. Now he read his letter with some 
curiosity. 

My Dear Blackett: 

You will doubtless be surprised at hearing 
from me after so long a silence, and though our 
friendship, I am happy to think, depends on 
nothing so flimsy as notepaper, yet I have often 
felt some sort of reproach — perhaps you have 
shared it — for never having continued in letters 
those interesting conversations which we had on 
your last visit. 

Y our visits, by the way, are growing so rare 
that I fear your western plains are really prov- 
ing too strong for you. And now to the subject 
of my letter. As you probably know, Sir George 
34 


The Book of His Boyhood 

of late years has come to leave his affairs more 
entirely in my hands. He is growing old, the 
pleasures of his library are entering more 
largely into his life, and, as a consequence my 
work has been considerably increased. Now, 
as perhaps you are aware, Sir George has only 
two sons, the elder of whom is a chronic invalid, 
and a bachelor, spending most of his time in 
continental watering-places, endeavouring to 
prolong a life that must inevitably close in a year 
or two. The younger, Henry, left home many 
years ago under circumstances to which I need 
not refer. Sir George has. been obdurate in 
his refusal to see him again, although an al- 
lowance is made to him in quarterly cheques. 
And it is because it has fallen to me to despatch 
these remittances to an address in Manitoba, 
which I have just learned is also your own, that 
I have written this letter to you. For Sir 
George has been pondering a good deal lately 
as to the disposal of his interests after his death. 
The elder son is, of course, out of the question, 
and though the entailed property, a few incon- 
siderable acres, must of necessity fall to Henry, 
Sir George is firmly resolved that he shall have 
nothing else. 

He has, however, recently thrown out hints 
that he would like to learn if Henry has gotten 
himself an heir, and also to discover something 
more of his present circumstances than we have 
been able to gather. And so, as a friend and in 
confidence, I am writing to you for the help I 
feel sure you can give us. You will, of course, 
see that all enquiries are necessarily tentative, 

35 


The Manitoban 


and that anything in the nature of a hope or 
promise must be absolutely out of the question 
at present. 

The letter ended with some references to 
mutual friends and a reminiscence of days at 
Harrow. It was addressed from the Dorrington 
Club, in Mayfair, and was signed by Cyril 
Trevelyan. 

Blackett pondered its contents for some while. 
It was curious that he should never have associ- 
ated Sir George, whom he knew very well, with 
the blue-eyed bleary giant who was so familiar a 
figure in the Carroll hotels. The contrast was 
strange and a little pitiful. And yet, as Blackett 
knocked the ashes out of his pipe, he wondered 
if there were indeed a saloon in Canada that had 
not set its seal upon some such story as this. 


36 






IV 


The shady side of the dry-goods store was 
always a favourite trysting-place for the youth of 
Carroll, and during the noon-day spell, when 
their elders were smoking in quiet places or 
snatching a few moments of slumber, a little 
group of sun-tanned youngsters was usually col- 
lected at this spot. 

Their shrill voices suggested no desire for 
repose, nor did their sturdy limbs seem in any 
way conscious of the prevailing drowsiness. On 
this occasion, Roddy, standing in the roadway 
with his blue eyes screwed up into slits above 
his cheeks, was blinking contentedly in the sun- 
light, his hat pushed back over his short brown 
hair, his hands buried, English fashion, in his 
pockets. He was the complacent centre of 
interest to some half dozen barelegged boys and 
girls lounging in the shadow, and displayed a 
lean brown shin crossed by an angry weal. 

“ Pete Lafayette is a son of a swine,” he 
observed, and there was a murmur of assent. 

“ An’ what did he hit you for, Roddy? ” asked 
somebody. 

“ He knocked off my hat with his whip as he 
drove by, an’ I called after him, ‘ Dirty old half- 
39 


The Manitoban 


breed ! ’ an’ then he cut back, an’ I hadn’t time 

to dodge him, an’ he did that ” Here Roddy 

ended in language entirely unrespectable, stick- 
ing out a bare leg for inspection and pity. 

“ Hush, Roddy, you shouldn’t swear,” said a 
little girl. 

She spoke in shocked tones, but Roddy smiled 
superiorly. 

“ Guess you’d ha’ done if he’d hit you like 
that — guess anyone would ha’ done.” 

The boys looked at him admiringly, though a 
little awed at the recklessness of his language, 
for Roddy scorned the half measures that at 
present marked their own furthest outposts in 
the realms of blasphemy. Moreover, he was 
revolving a plug of real tobacco between his 
teeth, while they for the most part were satisfy- 
ing their young propensities with chewing gum, 
and this attainment alone was sufficient to place 
Roddy in a position of desirable supremacy. 

Indeed, if it had not been for the unfortunately 
unanimous condemnation passed upon him by 
parental opinion, Roddy would long ago have 
been enthroned as the uncrowned king of 
juvenile Carroll. 

As matters were, however, there was perhaps 
no child present who had not been warned at 
one time or another as to the undesirability of 
Roddy as a bosom companion. And thus it had 
40 


The Book of His Boyhood 

come about that Roddy, while entirely at his 
ease with all classes of this western community, 
had but few friends in any. 

The recognized toughs of the place laughed 
at him, admired him, and treated him to black 
plug; the Methodists had made sundry strenu- 
ous but hitherto unsuccessful raids upon his 
soul; the Presbyterians, shaking their heads, 
had prophesied dismally; the mothers collec- 
tively , while letting him saw their wood, drive 
in their cows, or do odd jobs about the house, 
had always suppressed with an iron hand any 
rising intimacy between him and their own chil- 
dren; the fathers, to a man, said it was a pity 
that he was so evidently going the way of his 
father; and in their hearts they loved him. His 
father’s farm being a little more than a mile out 
of the town, Roddy was a frequent visitor to 
Carroll, spending indeed as much of his time as 
was not absolutely required by his parents in 
doing whatever work came to his hand, a 
remunerative occupation that was greatly more 
desirable in his eyes than unrecompensed labour 
upon the farm at home. 

And since his father possessed only one team, 
which he drove himself, when sufficiently his 
own master to be able to do so, Roddy found a 
good deal of time to satisfy his desire for the 
companionships of town. 

4i 


The Manitoban 


Henry Laville, a big invertebrate, younger son 
of good English stock, was a remittance man of 
the worst type, receiving every quarter a cheque 
sufficiently large to obviate the absolute neces- 
sity of farming his land well, and thus, since it 
was largely expended in drinks of varying size 
and quality, perfectly successful in keeping him 
perpetually and to the majority of his neighbours 
contemptibly poor. 

Yet he had certain qualities that commanded 
some amount of respect. He was kindly and 
honourable. His wife, a pale, silent woman, 
whom he had married in Eastern Canada, made 
no complaints of ill-treatment to the few friends 
who visited her. 

No man had heard him lie, or known him 
make a shady bargain, and these in a Manitoban 
town were attributes beyond praise. And he 
was recognized as being the best fighter in 
Carroll, bringing an English training to the 
assistance of the magnificent physique with 
which nature, ever prodigal to younger sons, 
had endowed him. 

Regarded as a parent, he was admittedly a 
failure. Twice he had thrashed Roddy for some 
small dishonesty, but these had been the only 
occasions upon which he had seen fit to assume 
any of the greater responsibilities of fatherhood. 

And Roddy, adoring his father, had deemed 
42 


The Book of His Boyhood 

it no small, if a somewhat painful, honour to 
suffer at his hands. 

Suddenly upon the little group in the shadow 
came Henry Laville, swinging heavy-footed 
down the wooden sidewalk. Seeing Roddy, he 
pulled up short, asking him why he was not at 
home looking after the horses and preparing to 
plough upon the summer fallow during the 
afternoon. Consigning him to perdition, he 
bade him hasten with all possible speed unless 
he wished for an immediate pass to a fate that 
would assuredly be his some day. Then he 
apologized for swearing, laughing at the chil- 
dren’s eyes — half shocked, half scared — and 
betook himself to the bank, whence Roddy 
gathered that the cheque had arrived, and that 
for two or three days the management of the 
farm would fall upon his own shoulders. 

“ I guess I must be goin’,” he said, and shoul- 
dered sturdily down the hot road, whistling a 
cheerful air, well content with life. 

And as he made his way home the express 
leaving Carroll on its western journey passed 
him, the great cars swinging noisily on the 
metals. 

He glanced at them, incuriously, watching 
them with the nonchalance of custom. Pres- 
ently they would grow small upon the prairies 
and disappear, as they had always done on days 
43 


The Manitoban 

unnumbered. Even so with careless eyes we 
watch the incidents upon whose unguessed foun- 
dations the whole fabric of our future is to rest. 

So Roddy, well at ease, whistled peacefully 
down the homeward trail ; and in an hour, white- 
shirted and shouting shrilly to his horses, was 
footing it manfully behind his father’s plough. 
Presently two persons — a woman and a child — 
followed his footsteps down the trail. At the 
ploughing they stopped, waiting until Roddy, 
wondering, reached the end of the furrow. 

“ Is yon Laville’s ? ” asked the woman. Roddy 
nodded, and noticed that her cheeks were thin 
and her eyes haunted and careworn. 

But the little girl was ruddy, with red lips, 
and when she smiled her teeth were as white 
as his own. Roddy liked looking at her, and 
wondered if they would stay for supper, if they 
would be there when he came back from work. 

“ Is Mrs. Laville at home?” 

“ Why, yes.” 

Roddy was a little surprised. The idea of 
there being any other possibility had not occurred 
to him. 

The woman thanked him, turning away rather 
wearily he thought. 

The little girl looked back once for a moment, 
as though she would like to linger by the 
ploughing. 


44 


The Book of His Boyhood 

Roddy pursued his way for a round or two, 
pondering over these strangers and their errand, 
guessing readily enough that they had but an 
hour or two ago arrived on the train, wondering 
what they were now saying to his mother in the 
little shanty down the trail. Presently the girl 
came out, standing bareheaded in the doorway, 
hesitant apparently, but then coming leisurely 
towards him. He was halfway down the fur- 
row, and she made her way across the untilled 
fallow. 

He noticed the weeds, breast-high, swaying 
greenly about her, as she walked with lifted 
arms. He thought she would be about twelve 
years old and it was pretty to see her with her 
tangled hair shining in the sunlight. 

When she came close, he saw that her eyes 
were very wide and black, and said continually: 
“ I want to play.” 

His western traditions forbade a pause mid- 
way upon the furrow, but she held alongside, 
looking at him a little shyly. 

Presently: 

“You’re Roddy?” she asked. 

“Yes.” 

He felt strangely tongue-tied, a new and per- 
plexing experience. 

“ I got so tired,” she said, “ listenin’ to them 
talkin’, your mother an’ mine, an’ they didn’t 
45 


The Manitoban 


notice me any, an’ so I thought I’d come out 
an’ — an’ watch the ploughin’.” 

Roddy grunted, keeping a steady eye upon the 
old chestnut mare. She was inclined to pull out. 

“Say, may I drive?” 

Roddy was dubious. 

“ Down east we often have some one drivin’ 
in front.” 

Roddy looked a little superior. 

“I guess one man can do it all out here,” he said. 

Then he relented, thinking she looked wistful. 

“You can if you like,” he said, “ on’y look out 
fer Rosy — she’s always pullin’ out so. Come 
back, you old bitch.” 

He handed her the reins, glancing at her 
awkwardly. 

“ What’s your name? ” he asked. 

“ Hope.” 

“ That’s a funny name.” 

“ You see, when I was born, mother was feelin’ 
sad — an’ there was an old doctor there — an’ he 
tried to cheer her — an’ so they called me Hope.” 

Roddy nodded wisely. 

“ I see.” 

They held on down the furrow ; then : 

“ Y ou’ve travelled some, I expect ? ” suggested 
Roddy. 

“ Big Tree Camp was where I was born,” said 
the girl. “ Then we went to Duty City. That’s 
46 


The Book of His Boyhood 

in Michigan. Then we was on a railway. Then 
we lived in Detroit. Then we was in a factory 
in Chicago. Then we was on another railway. 
Then we came here.” 

Roddy looked at her wide-eyed. 

“ I say, you have seen somethin’,” he said. 

She nodded. 

“ Lots an’ lots o’ things — fights an’ things. I 
saw a man shoot a man once. That was in a 
camp on a railway where mother was cookin’ 
an’ washin’ an’ that.” 

Roddy’s eyes grew bright. 

“ Tell me,” he said. 

And she told him, dwelling seriously on those 
parts which, being bloody, would seem more 
likely to interest her companion. 

Roddy, racking his brain, conscious of a 
narrower experience, endeavoured suitably to 
respond, and thus chattering, they came to the 
end of the furrow. 

There she sat down and began to pull off her 
shoes and stockings. 

“ I had to wear them in the train, you know,” 
she said, apologetically. 

Roddy gazed at his own toes, brown and 
unshod. 

“ I suppose you have to in trains,” he said, 
pityingly. Nevertheless he sighed. 

“ I’ve never been in one, you see.” 

47 


The Manitoban 


As he brought the horses round, she folded 
the despised garments, laying them neatly under 
a tuft of wiry prairie grass. 

Devoid of unnecessary finery, she became 
even more companionable, and Roddy’s heart 
went out to her. 

Already, against the uninteresting back- 
ground of his girlish .acquaintance, she was be- 
coming pleasantly distinct. 

More human than they, Roddy could not but 
feel that she had a tact and culture unpossessed 
by any damsel that had so far crossed his path. 

Gifted with all the instincts of true comrade- 
ship, she had, he felt, a remarkable grasp of the 
things that were interesting and important. 

Comparing their young experiences, the hot 
hours fled by on wings, bringing hunger and 
evening and the close of toil with a surprising 
swiftness. 

And when at last they rode home side by side, 
perched peacefully upon the big mare’s back, 
they journeyed as old friends, who have borne 
the heat of the day together. 

And as they neared the shanty, Roddy was 
not surprised when his mother, coming out from 
the door, bade him be acquainted with his aunt, 
her sister Elizabeth. 

He merely wondered a little why the eyes of 
both were red with recent tears. 

48 






















V 


Mary Laville was regarded by her few 
friends as a woman to be pitied rather than 
loved. 

Though living but two miles from Carroll, 
she was seldom to be seen in town ; the chapel 
socials knew her not, and, indeed, she seldom 
left the homestead for any purpose at all. 

It was true that the pride which in her earlier 
Manitoban days had bidden her hide her domes- 
tic sorrows, as best she might, had deserted her 
long since, but the habits engendered by it had 
grown strong, and remained. 

Moreover, working hard, as all western women 
must, Mary Laville worked harder than most, 
performing single-handed all the work of her 
little house, and often enough that of dairy and 
stable as well. 

And it had perhaps been natural that she 
should grow self-centred and colourless, accept- 
ing her present with the patience of custom, 
regarding the future with a joyless indifference. 

It was hard to believe that there had once 
been a time, and not so distant as to preclude 
occasional regret, when she and her sister had 
been the most popular, and indeed, as folk said, 
5i 


The Manitoban 

the prettiest pair of girls in the little Ontario 
town by the great river. It was hard, too, to 
believe that she had once been fond of singing, 
had been able to dance, had met the days light- 
heartedly, looking life in the face with glad 
eyes, finding it good. It was in those vanished, 
hardly-believable days, that Henry Laville, bitter 
from his father’s home, had sought comfort in 
her youth and freshness, winning her with his 
well-bred English manners and unaccustomed 
deference. 

The joy had fled so quickly from their married 
life that it now seemed almost an eternity since 
the brief wooing with all its mystery and triumph, 
and it was fortunate perhaps that work, as a 
rule, forbade reminiscence, and that to her tired 
sleep dreams came but rarely. And, after all, 
she had much to be thankful for. She had 
enough to eat, for instance, and Henry Laville 
had not treated her with any marked unkind- 
ness, nor ever with personal violence. 

And she could not but be grateful. More- 
over, she had been vouchsafed a son, Roddy, 
loved with a passionate unwanted love, sorrowed 
over with a continual sorrow. For to Mary 
Laville, brought up in the strictest puritanism 
of a Methodist Ontario household, it was only 
too apparent that the devil was fast claiming 
Roddy as his own. 


52 


The Book of His Boyhood 

And Roddy himself, adoring his father, re- 
garded her rather as an important accessory to 
home and comfort than an object upon which 
to bestow his youthful devotion, listening gravely 
to her querulous remonstrances, glad they were 
becoming rarer, recognizing not at all that they 
were love’s disguise. 

But again, as she frequently told herself, 
Roddy was in many ways a good son, not 
unwilling to work when necessity demanded it, 
and wonderfully ready with his hands. It was 
true that certain dreams had faded from her 
sky, beautiful, tender dreams, nursed modestly 
in those far-off days — but then, girls have such 
foolish dreams. 

Thus Mary Laville, seated on a golden after- 
noon of June, sewing up a tattered shirt for 
Roddy’s future use. 

Ah ! poor patched garments of mankind, worn 
so carelessly, and so oftentimes love’s purest 
monument. 

It was an ardent, glorious afternoon, and the 
great sun, westering slowly over the plains, had 
flooded the world with its splendour. 

There came a knock on the door, and opening 
it, she faced two travellers. 

The little girl looked at her with frank curi- 
osity, but the woman returned her gaze with a 
heightened colour and shrinking eyes. 

53 


The Manitoban 

For a minute there was silence between them ; 
then: 

“ Mary!” 

“ Elizabeth ! ” 

Despite tradition, such meetings after many 
years are usually unemotional enough, but to- 
day the occurrence fell in strangely with her 
mood, finding her with her thoughts already in 
the past. 

And here, as its ghost, stood her sister, her 
sister whom the years had wrapped in silence, 
since she had fallen away from grace and faced 
the world alone. 

Mary could remember the old stern eyes that 
had never relented, the lips that had never 
breathed forgiveness. And yet, was this indeed 
her sister, this frail, time-stricken creature, 
standing before her, wan and unbeautiful in a 
blazing irony of sunshine ? 

Nor will any subsequent history reveal the 
verdict of those unknown years more truly than 
this first shock of altered personality. 

Perhaps the other read this in her sister’s gaze, 
for her own fell, resting upon the little girl. 

“ This is Hope,” she stammered. 

“Hope? Ah, I did not know!” Mary 
stooped swiftly, kissing the child’s forehead. 
Then she held out both hands to her sister. 

“ Come in and rest,” she said. 

54 


The Book of His Boyhood 

The shadows in the little kitchen would be 
kinder than the light of day. Presently Hope 
crept out into the sunshine, but the women, 
looking at one another, sat for a while in silence 
— memory, insistent, inarticulate, beating at the 
heart of each. 

And hark! Was not that the note of an axe, 
echoing home across the clearing? 

And was not this the sound of dancing feet 
upon the school-house floor, the clatter of a 
crazy piano, ringing out across the snow? 

And who are these, bright-eyed, triumphant, 
whispering girl secrets in the candlelight ? 

“You are not looking well, Elizabeth.” 

“ No; I am not very well.” 

“You must be tired. Have you travelled 
far?” 

“ From Winnipeg to-day.” 

“ I’ll get you some tea right now.” 

“ Thank you.” 

Mary busied herself about the stove. 

“ We passed your Roddy ploughin’.” 

“Ah!” 

“ He — he’s a bonny lad, Mary.” 

“ Yes, he’s strong.” 

“You — must be happy, Mary.” 

“ Yes — you’ll eat somethin ’? ” 

And they had tea together. 

Presently: 


55 


The Manitoban 


“I’m glad you’ve come at last, Lizzie. I 
should not have liked — it is nice to see you 
again — you 

But the other had bent her head upon her 
arms, and with her tears the barriers broke 
down. 

And, “ Mary,” she said, and “ Oh, Mary ! ” In 
the waning light, low-voiced upon the prairie’s 
stillness, they told their stories ; the one colour- 
less, uneventful, disappointed ; the other probing 
deeper into tragedy, a history of long unrest, 
for, dominated by an hour’s sin, Elizabeth’s life 
had been a continual wandering, dogged by the 
discovery, which her honesty dared not deny, 
spelling to her puritan nature a perpetual con- 
demnation. 

And as most seek happiness, so she with all 
her soul had sought obscurity. Then it was 
that Mary Laville learned that her sister had 
but come west to die. Would Mary forgive her, 
but indeed she had not been able to bear the 
thought of Hope alone with strangers and with 
no other birthright than its shame ? 

Then the children, riding together and talking 
eagerly, came homewards down the trail, and 
the sound of their voices falling upon the silence 
threaded it with laughter. 


56 


VI 



VI 


“ Thank heaven,” said Charlie, throwing back 
his aching shoulders and surveying the broken 
saw with unmitigated relief. It was the third 
that had snapped in his unskilled hands during 
the fortnight past, and he knew that there were 
no more. 

“ Thank heaven,” he observed again, for never 
had slower hours swung by on the wheel of time 
than those of the last two weeks ; and though 
from dawn to dusk the bucksaw had perforce 
whined its sorrowful way through endless lengths 
of monotonous green poplar, yet the woodpile 
behind him did not seem appreciably the smaller 
for his efforts. Now, at any rate, there would 
be respite. Day after day with envious eyes he 
had watched the others whistling contentedly, 
taking out their various teams to plough or 
fallow, far from this hot yard with all its smells 
and sawdust and abominable slavery. 

He felt that it would be good work out there 
with the horses, good telling work, that would 
bear its obvious fruit in future crops ; but this, 
this was merely the mechanical labour of veriest 
slavery. 


59 


The Manitoban 

Yet he had stuck to it obstinately, with 
tired muscles, forcing his saw through the 
tough wood, its strong, disheartening odour 
charging the hot air, reeking offensively in his 
nostrils. 

Moreover, the sense of novelty that had made 
his first few days tolerable was wearing away, 
leaving in its place a growing feeling of inferi- 
ority ; for surely he was but the merest menial 
in this household, the chore-boy, to whom all 
distasteful tasks were relegated as a matter of 
course, the Englishman, despised as a greenhorn 
and of no account. 

The shyness, too, with which the younger 
ones had at first regarded him had quickly 
evaporated, and was now being replaced by a 
continual banter that was growingly hard to 
bear. Even the barefooted girl, offering once 
with brown hands to guide his saw, had hardly 
held back her smile at his refusal, watching him 
carelessly from the open door as he held clumsily 
to his task. And remembering it now, he was 
fiercely glad, since all three blades were at last 
beyond repair. 

It was nearing supper-time, and he resolved, 
despite Canadian traditions, to take some well- 
earned rest, leaning contentedly against the 
stack* of wood, watching the prairie with lazy 
eyes. 


60 


The Book of His Boyhood 

The day had been hot beyond comparison 
and very still. 

On the southern horizon trembled a mirage of 
distant trees, faint and unreal, at the rim of the 
sky. 

Far down the trail the youngest boy was driv- 
ing home the cows from pasture ; and watching 
him his eyelids grew heavy with sleep. 

“ Had good dreams? ” 

He woke with a start, sitting up and rubbing 
his eyes. 

Two of the boys, home from ploughing, were 
looking at him seriously. Their ages pivoted 
on sixteen, and the one was resting his arm 
upon his brother’s shoulder. 

“ Had good dreams?” they asked again. 

Charlie coloured, more at the tone than the 
question. 

“ What’s that matter to you? ” he said. 

They smiled. 

“ Like sleepin’ under a wood-pile ? ” asked one. 

“ My, that’s a great bit o’ sawin’ you done 
since noon ! ” said the other. 

Charlie was on his feet now. He was taller 
than they, but they stood easily, fronting him 
with smiling lips. 

“An’ broke the saw again, too,” said one; 
and, “You’re too strong for that job, I guess,” 
added his brother. 


61 


The Manitoban 

“ Nice weather fer sleepin’ out? ” 

“ Min’ you don’t take cold after sweatin’ so 
much.” 

The little herd boy, back from the corral, had 
come up and stood now with laughing eyes 
looking from Charlie to his brothers. They 
were hidden from the house, and the old man 
and Jack had already gone in to supper. 

“ Has he broken it again? ” asked the young- 
ster, but his brothers, without noticing him, 
kept their eyes upon Charlie. 

“ My, you’re a wonderful feller to get through 
the work ! ” they said. “ Sawed up a cord o’ 
wood this week, I reckon?” 

Charlie listened to them with glowing cheeks, 
his heart a storm within him, for had he not 
worked until he was ready to drop with weari- 
ness, holding his aching muscles to their task in 
an honest endeavour to do a good day’s work ? 

It was hard to be scoffed at even by boys. 

“ Done much sawin’ in the old country, or 
on’y sleepin’? ” 

Then he stepped up to them. 

“You damned young cads,” he said, striking 
the elder upon the lips. The boy flushed, push- 
ing aside his brother’s arm. But he was still 
smiling. 

“ My, you’re gettin’ mad now ! ” he said slowly, 
and Charlie struck him again with the back of 
62 


The Book of His Boyhood 

his hand, confident in his English training, and 
in his eagerness to repay the indignities of this 
bitter fortnight all possible consequences be- 
came nothing to him. But at the end of a 
minute he had not inflicted the punishment he 
thought, and his muscles, tired already, were 
not obeying him swiftly. Moreover, this boy, 
younger than he, but prairie-bred, was breathing 
as quietly as ever, his brown cheeks cool, and 
his eyes, grown sterner since the laughter left 
them, showing a capacity for infinite endurance. 
Charlie grew wilder and more uneasy, his breath 
coming in hoarse pants, until the old man, 
rounding the corner, broke angrily upon their 
fight. 

The boy, dropping his hands, looked dumbly 
at his father, but Charlie turned to him with 
quick sentences. 

“ Look here,” he said “ I’ve had enough of 
this cursed sawing and insolence. I didn’t come 
out here to be anybody’s nigger, and I’m not 
going to do any damned Canadian’s dirty work.” 

The old man, self-complacent and unaccus- 
tomed to rebuke, turned purple with anger. 
Then: 

“ Look here, young man,” he spluttered, 
“ there’s two things I don’t allow on this farm — 
swearin’s one of them an’ laziness is the other. 
An’ if you can’t put in a good day’s work at the 

63 


The Manitoban 


end o’ a fortnight without breakin’ things, I 
guess you’d better quit. An’ I tell you I’m not 
goin’ to have any o’ this fightin’ nonsense. This 
here’s a farm, not a circus wantin’ clowns. If 
you want to fight anybody, fight me, see? I’d 
knock your ugly head off pretty quick, see ? ” 

The old man paused, wheeling round and 
striding back to the house, mistrusting the look 
in Charlie’s eyes, nor wishing indeed to be taken 
at his word. 

Moreover, it was to his interest to keep him 
over harvest, and already his shrewder instincts 
were outmastering his temper. He looked back 
over his shoulder sulkily. 

“You’d better come in to supper,” he said. 

But Charlie with white lips brushed past him 
into the house, ignoring the curious eyes of the 
others, and going straight to the bedroom where 
his box lay. This he locked, after flinging into 
it a few odd garments which had been strewn 
upon the floor. Then he took his coat and 
came back into the kitchen. The others were 
waiting at table, and the old man spoke a 
sonorous grace. 

When he had finished, Charlie turned to him. 

“ I guess I’ll quit,” he said. 

The old man looked up with his mouth full. 

“ Sit right down,” he grunted. But Charlie 
flung out of the door upon the darkening trail, 
64 


The Book of His Boyhood 

stepping blindly and knowing not at all in which 
direction he should go. That he had left these 
ill-bred Canadians with their satire and slavery 
was sufficient for the moment. 

He passed the buildings, holding westward 
into the dying sunlight. 

“ Charlie ! ” 

He stopped, turning round upon the trail, and 
saw the old woman, bareheaded, with her kind, 
keen eyes. 

“ Don’t go, Charlie,” she said, laying her hand 
on his arm. “ I know it’s hard. But it’s the 
mill that we’ve all been through. An’ you 
mustn’t take the old man at his word. He’s 
often this way, an’ he means it no more than 
anythin’, an’ the boys are wantin’ you to stay, an’ 
we like you, Charlie, an’ it’ll soon be all right 
again. An’ we know you’re a good worker. 
An’ I’ve cooked some hot biscuits fer your 
supper, an’ you’re goin’ away without tastin’ 
them. An’ where’ll you go, an’ how’ll you know 
whether they’re good folk who take you on, 
who’ll pay you your wages an’ treat you fair?” 

But Charlie shook his head. 

“ I’m not going back after that,” he said. 

She pleaded again, but he was obstinate. 

“ It’s good of you, Mrs. Luke; but I’m going 
to stick to what I said.” 

Then: 


s 


65 


The Manitoban 


“See,” she said sorrowfully, “I’ve got some 
biscuits for you. You must eat somethin’.” 

He thrust them in his pocket. 

“ Good-bye, and thank you,” he said. 

“ Good-bye.” 

She watched him down the trail, and the tears 
were not far from her eyes, for she, too, had 
built her castles in the air and seen them tumble 
sadly about her ears, and her mother instinct 
guessed at his tumbled dreams. 

But Charlie, taking the unknown trail, felt a 
strange exhilaration, since now at last he had 
taken life with both hands and for the first time 
was master of his footsteps ; for thus far all his 
ways had been planned by others — his schooling, 
his holidays, his future, even the farmer to whose 
care he had been intrusted. 

But now he w r as facing the world alone, and 
the bitterness of the day, with its sweat and 
scorn, grew fainter as he held out across the 
plains. 

And it was wonderful to be walking thus in a 
new and unknown land with one’s future in 
one’s own keeping. 

But presently the loneliness of the night 
creeping upon him changed his mood, and he 
began to wonder what the future might hold. 
He grew hungry, and remembering the biscuits 
ate them gladly, thinking gratefully of Mrs. 

66 


The Book of His Boyhood 

Luke, even regretting a little that he had left 
her motherliness behind him. And the boys, 
with all their banter, had not treated him so 
badly after all, showing him many things, and 
always paying fitting deference to his education, 
an asset that had seemed small enough to him, 
but in their eyes was unattainable and golden. 
He grew a little ashamed of his temper, that, 
after all, had been mainly the offspring of his 
own clumsiness and lack of patience. Away on 
the right he could see a light blinking redly in 
the dusk, and thought at first that he would 
make towards it, but remembering certain 
rumours decided to avoid it, holding further 
into the unknown. 

And as he strode, already tired from a long 
day’s toil, the stillness of the night became more 
oppressive, lying about him almost like a threat. 

And then it was that a sigh, infinitely faint, 
floated to his ears. 

He looked round a little startled, but in the 
darkness could see nothing save that in front of 
him some stars that a few moments ago had 
been blazing brightly, were now blocked from 
his sight. 

He quickened his pace, comforting himself 
with the assurance that the trail must in time 
lead to some dwelling-place where prairie hos- 
pitality would be surely extended to him. 

67 


The Manitoban 


And again a sigh, a little more distinct, reach- 
ing him a little more definitely from a point far 
down the trail. 

The faintest puff of wind brushed his cheek. 
It was warm, and died suddenly away. 

The emptiness of the plains struck into his 
spirit, filling him with a strange unquiet, and 
to-night they presented a new front to his expe- 
rience, with a menace of coming cruelty. 

The darkness grew hotter, and when again 
the wind, coming fitfully down the trail, touched 
his face, it might have been the breath of a 
furnace. 

And then it was that his frightened eyes, 
searching the night, encountered a cloud, long 
and low and shaped like a torpedo. 

He had never seen so sinister a cloud, nor one 
that frowned so cruelly near the earth, and the 
fear of it gripped his heart. 

He remembered stories of tornadoes, and 
wondered if this could be one. He had heard 
of them in Dakota, across the border, but never 
here in Manitoba. Was this to be the first, and 
he its victim? And then the storm broke very 
suddenly. 

He put up his hands to shelter his eyes and 
face from the stones, and they beat him down, 
drumming on his back and shoulders. He 
crouched upon the trail wet and fearful and 
68 


The Book of His Boyhood 

thrashed like a dog. And in the thunder of the 
tempest the clatter of Jack Carson’s waggon was 
but the whisper of a child. 

Yet he came with a loose rein and hail-spurred 
horses, his empty waggon-box bumping peril- 
ously, swinging from side to side, taking the 
trail at topmost speed. 

Suddenly the horses pulled out upon the 
grass, plunging wildly, and Carson dragging 
them back into the teeth of the storm cursed at 
their delay, but knowing them well stared harder 
into the darkness. And in the middle of the 
trail a figure, huddled and beaten, caught his 
eye, and leaning from his seat he shouted to it 
to climb up. Charlie with cramped limbs clam- 
bered blindly into the waggon. Carson threw 
him some empty sacks, bidding him cover him- 
self as best he might, and held his horses against 
the storm for another half hour. Then at last, 
swinging among some buildings, a sudden glow 
of light, from a door just opened, streamed out 
upon the trail, and leaning back upon the reins 
he pulled up hard. 

“ Thank the Lord,” he observed piously, and 
climbed down beside the horses. Framed in 
the doorway, his wife, slender and girlish, stood 
holding a lantern above her head, peering out 
through the hail. 

Carson was unfastening the traces, when sud- 
69 


The Manitoban 

denly remembering his passenger he shouted 
up at him : 

“ Hurrah, man ! ” he said. “ Get in and warm 
yourself!” 

Charlie, faint and half-frozen, stumbled out 
and came round to help him. 

“ Let me give you a hand,” he stammered, 
but Carson, taking the lantern from his wife, 
swung it round against his white face, looking 
at him keenly. 

“ That’s all right,” he said. “ Glad you’re an 
Englishman. Get inside and warm yourself. 
Girlie, here’s somebody for you to look after, 
and give him a smile of whiskey.” 

It was the first time in this new land that 
English voices had sounded in his ears, and 
Charlie entered the shanty with a grateful heart. 

“ And you are wet through. I must get you 
some of Jack’s things.” 

The voice was tender and well-bred, and 
almost brought tears to his eyes. 

He drank up the whiskey and water and 
looked at her eagerly. Her English refine- 
ment was abundantly apparent though she was 
roughly clad, with bare arms, busy about supper. 

Presently Jack, wet and swarthy, came in from 
the stables, brushing the rain from his mous- 
tache, and bending down to kiss his wife. 

“ Got him some togs, girlie? ” 

7 o 


The Book of His Boyhood 

“Yes.” 

“Good, and now we’ll have some grub and 
make a man of him. Just out, eh? ” 

Charlie nodded. 

“A fortnight ago,” he said, and told them his 
story. 

Jack looked at his wife quizzically. 

“We’re not over rich,” he said. “But I’ll 
give you eight dollars a month till you’re worth 
more if you care to take it on. I’m wanting a 
man for haying and harvest.” 

And Charlie with great content closed gladly 
with his offer. 

Next day the sun smiled out of a cloudless 
sky upon a prairie golden and glistening, and, to 
Charlie, filled with the brightest promise. As he 
stood at the shanty door drinking in something 
of its purity, the scenes of yesterday seemed but 
a nightmare past, and indeed his own aching 
limbs were surely the only witnesses to its 
reality. But Carson, coming up from the build- 
ings, stood for a moment with shaded eyes 
looking out over the prairie. 

“ See that fellow ploughing there ? ” he asked 
presently. 

Charlie nodded. 

“ That’s wheat, killed to death by the hail last 
night, and he’s ploughing it under. Last year 
he had his crops frozen, and two years ago they 
7 1 


The Manitoban 

were burnt in stook. This’ll finish him, I guess, 
poor devil.” 

So the night had held its tragedy, after all. 

“ But you’ve escaped ? ” 

Jack nodded grimly. 

“ Contrary to my usual luck, yes,” he said. 

And they went in to breakfast. 

Afterwards, as they settled future plans, he 
crossed over to the cupboard, lifting down a 
brown demijohn of whiskey. 

“ Have a smile for luck,” he said. 

For a moment Charlie wavered, the ghost of 
a promise, given in the Berkshire rectory, flitting 
spectrally before his mind. 

Then he threw back his head. Ha4 he not 
taken the world for himself and found it good ? 

“ Thanks,” he said, drinking to future happi- 
ness, and with never a thought for all the hun- 
dred thousand hopes that had withered in the 
shadow of a demijohn. 


72 






1 







































































































. 


VII 




























































































VII 


Into the blue waters of Silver Lake Roddy 
splashed contentedly, his shirt and knickers 
limp and damp with the sweat of toil lying 
crumpled on the white sand behind him. 

Touched by the faintest ripple, whispering 
and crystal, the lake stretched for some two 
hundred acres to a farther bank of stunted bush. 

Hidden among the trees stood Blackett’s 
shanty, and above it, on this harvest afternoon, 
a blue wisp of smoke hung lazily on the hot air. 
Even to Roddy, nonchalant and accustomed to 
its beauty, the lake, set like a jewel in a dip of 
the brown prairies, seemed lovelier than ever, 
and a consciousness of work well done lent it 
an added lustre; for Henry Laville, working 
many hours a day, had cut his eighty-acre patch 
of wheat since the beginning of the week, and 
Roddy, stooking from dawn till dusk, even with 
Hope to help him, had found it hard to keep 
pace with the binder. 

Now it was over, and the stubble lay bare and 
gleaming, dotted with the white stooks, waiting 
for stacking-time. And at the end of it Roddy 
with his dusty skin had yearned suddenly for 
75 


The Manitoban 

Silver Lake, two miles from home upon the 
southward trail. 

The water at the margin was cold, but out in 
the middle, unsheltered from the sun since 
dawn, it spread a basking surface, warm and 
delicious. 

Roddy swam leisurely out into the lake with 
peaceful strokes, until finding a place after his 
own heart he rolled over on his back, floating 
with arms outstretched, staring up into the 
great blue dome above him, unflecked by the 
lightest cloud. 

He could feel the sun tanning his chest and 
cheeks, and the waters drumming pleasantly in 
his ears. And Blackett, smoking a pipe in the 
shadow of his doorway, watched him with a 
smile. He seemed so well content with life. 

Presently, shaking the water out of his ears, 
his round head bobbed up above the surface, 
and doing so a figure upon the bank seemed to 
have caught his eye. 

“ Roddy,” it called. “ Roddy.” 

He swam toward the shore, wondering that 
Hope, whom he had left at home helping to 
make the butter, with unwilling hands, had fol- 
lowed him so quickly. 

As he drew nearer, he could see her eyes 
watching him wistfully. And she had clasped 
her hands. 


7 6 


The Book of His Boyhood 

“Oh, Roddy!” she said. “I’ve run away — • 
an’ do you think — do you think I might come 
in?” 

He hung back, treading the water, looking at 
her in some amazement. It had not occurred 
to him that she would want to bathe, nor in a 
rapid survey of the surrounding families could 
he remember that any of their daughters had 
been known to swim in Silver Lake. Then : 

“ Can you swim ? ” he asked dubiously. 

She looked at him with shining eyes. Swim ? 
How many months had she lived among the 
lakes and rivers of the great woods that he 
should ask her such a question. 

“ It’s rather deep, you know,” he added, and 
holding an arm above his head dropped beneath 
the surface to demonstrate his words. But 
when he appeared again her smile was con- 
temptuous. 

“ I don’t care if it’s ten miles deep,” she said, 
and Roddy capitulated. 

“ All right,” he assented. “ On’y don’t get 
drowned, you know.” 

He lay back, kicking the water, looking at her 
curiously through a shower of golden spray; 
and she stood now upon an overhanging piece 
of the bank, poised and radiant, her feet half 
hidden in the brown grass, her dark hair clus- 
tered closely about her head. He could see the 
77 


The Manitoban 


lines on her neck and below her knees that 
marked the border of the sun-brown. 

And watching her dispassionately, he won- 
dered a little at her strength and daintiness, 
surprised at never having guessed it, half con- 
cious that she filled him with a sudden new 
satisfaction. Then she stood a moment in the 
sun and then lifted her arms, laughing at him 
as he trod the water, and in a moment, arrowy 
and noiseless, had dived into the lake below. 

And when she came up beside him, shaking 
the water from her eyes, her cheeks flushed at 
his obvious admiration. 

“ I say, you can dive,” he said, enviously. 
“ Where did you learn? I can’t dive a bit.” 

She told him a little breathlessly that the men 
in Big Tree Camp had taught her, when she was 
little, from some rocks above a pool in the woods. 

And presently Roddy clambered out in a 
clumsy effort to follow her example, and the 
splash of his entry mingled with her laughter. 

“ I can’t do it a bit,” he said ruefully, looking 
down at his chest, stung pink by the shock of 
his contact with the water. 

She encouraged him. 

“ Never mind, you will some day, I guess, if 
you on’y stick to it.” 

“ I say, this is better’n stookin’.” 

“ Better’n anythin’ I think, don’t you?” 

78 


The Book of His Boyhood 

Roddy nodded, taking a long breath and 
letting himself slip down into the blue depths 
through which the gravel shone white and 
clear. 

But when he came up, blown and gasping, 
Hope, too, had vanished, disappearing for so 
long that at last he grew almost frightened, until 
out in the middle she rose up in the sunlight, 
laughing at his wonder. 

Roddy’s sense of superiority received a second 
blow. 

It was his turn to look wistful, and, “ I wish I 
could do that,” he said. 

But, “ never mind,” she answered again. 
“You can do lots o’ things I can’t do. You 
can ride, an’ your stooks don’t tumble down, 
an’ you can lift a bag o’ wheat, an’ chop wood.” 

Roddy grew more complacent. 

“ I guess it’s on’y practice I want,” he observed. 

And so the afternoon wore away, fled away, 
as the best of hours always fly, even in youth. 

And surely it must be some primal instinct, 
conquering the centuries, some lingering mem- 
ory of the world’s remotest youth, that leads the 
eternal child in us to river and lake and sea for 
its most untrammelled joy. 

Blackett at his shanty door called Charlie to 
his side, pointing to the children in the lake. 

“ That’s a pretty picture, don’t you think? ” 

79 


The Manitoban 

The other, shading his eyes, looked at them 
smilingly. 

“ By Jove,” he said, “ I know the boy. He’s 
Roddy — Roddy something. I met him the day 
I came. And that’s his sister? ” 

But Blackett shook his head. 

“ I fancy not,” he said. “ Some cousin or 
relation, I think, who has just come out to live 
with them. Fancy choosing Laville’sfor a visit. 
Gad, it’s a curious notion. But Roddy is first- 
rate.” 

He stood up, framing his hands about his 
mouth, and his strong cooee floated down to the 
children dressing on the sand. 

Roddy waved his hand, and, seeing Blackett 
beckon, turned to Hope. 

“ I guess he’ll give us supper,” he said. As 
they climbed the trail to the shanty, with buoy- 
ant steps and cool brown skins, Roddy’s quick 
ears caught some words from Charlie’s lips. 
They filled him with a certain pride of posses- 
sion. 

“ By Jove, that’s a pretty child,” he heard him 
say, and saw that his eyes were held by her 
beauty. 


80 






















VIII 



















VIII 


Partly by reason of his married state and 
partly on account of a jaundiced and battered 
piano in his lean-to parlour, it fell to Jack Car- 
son’s lot to be the chiefest Sunday host among 
the scattered Englishmen of the settlement. 
And his shanty for the greater part of the day 
was consequently well filled with guests. 

And thus, too, it came about that when after 
breakfast on a certain November Sabbath 
Blackett stood at his door and wondered how 
he should spend the day, Jack Carson’s parlour 
rose naturally before his eyes. 

Turning back into his shanty he donned his 
fur cap, and pulling on a pair of buckskin moc- 
casins set out across the plain. 

Spread out before his eyes it lay on this winter 
morning, a silver sea, radiant and glistening ; and 
on the horizon, clear-cut, the hills of fifty miles 
away might have been the goal of a morning’s 
walk. 

To the north lay Carroll, with the sunlight on 
its whitewashed houses, and beyond it the snow- 
clad sand-hills of the Assineboine. 

83 


The Manitoban 

The low sun swung frostily in the southern 
sky, with gleaming sun-dogs on its either side, 
and the clean air thrilled with an icy purity. 

The thermometer, hovering some thirty de- 
grees below zero, suggested a deeper cold to 
come, and the least breath of wind cut like a 
knife. 

He crossed Silver Lake, with its four-foot 
covering of ice, and held on down the trail, 
striding swiftly, sucking at his pipe, with an eye 
for the promise of next week’s weather. 

A silent man, more prosperous than most, 
Blackett stood for a type of Englishman that in 
this part of Manitoba, at any rate, was rare — a 
man who in his ten years’ sojourn had learned 
the last thing in western farming, and, eschew- 
ing the lighter side of life, was building up his 
bank account and adding to his acres. He lived 
alone, and was reported to be capable of doing 
the work of two ordinary men. 

And as a consequence, by a light-hearted and 
usually bankrupt community of his fellow-coun- 
trymen, he was looked upon as an abnormal and 
even morose companion. Nevertheless on this 
Sunday morning his appearance at Carson’s 
doorway was greeted with an uproarious wel- 
come from some half dozen long-limbed bache- 
lors sprawling in the little parlour, filling it with 
a chorus, roaring gaily and in unison. 

84 


The Book of His Boyhood 

The song broke down in cheers and laughter. 

“ Hallo, Black, old man! ” 

“ Here’s old Croesus!” 

“ How’s the work going? ” 

“ Why aren’t you cutting wood ? ” 

“ Lost your way ? ” 

“ Feelin’ bad, old man, so’s you can’t work? ” 

Blackett received the fire of criticism and 
query with a smile, and, bowing to Mrs. Carson, 
subsided into a seat. Jack, at the piano, turned 
round in his shirt-sleeves, and, “Sing us the 
song, Black,” he said. 

And there followed a great cheering, for 
Blackett was the proud possessor and sole per- 
former of a certain lugubrious melody, that, 
dealing with babies and angels and death, was 
delivered by him with a robust and pleasing 
pathos. Blackett cleared his throat, and to 
Jack’s accompaniment proceeded to unburden 
himself of his tragedy, punctuated by roars of 
laughter and the tramp of feet, marking time to 
the music. 

At the end, sinking gravely back into his 
chair, he resumed his pipe, relapsing into silence, 
glancing round at the assembly for the first 
time. And a strange and rather battered little 
community it was, recruited from various lonely 
shanties, gathered here in Jack’s parlour and 
wrapped about by the greatness of the plains — 
85 


The Manitoban 


men, who had grown proof against disappoint- 
ment and content with hardship, hiding with an 
instinctive unselfishness their several difficulties, 
looking out upon life light-heartedly enough. 
Social barriers would have held them worlds 
apart at home, but here, face to face with the 
selfsame problems, beset by the same dangers, 
they were one in a commonwealth of toil. And 
thus Jack of Harrow and Cambridge was even 
now playing an accompaniment for Mike 
Malone, erstwhile chandler’s clerk of. Cork, in 
the county of Cork, and he, Blackett, the son of 
a country doctor, was sitting cheek by jowl with 
Tom Roper, a tram-conductor from Birming- 
ham, but a good fellow, with a gift for story- 
telling; and Charlie West, recently from a Berk- 
shire rectory, still bearing the public-school 
stamp upon him, was sharing the sofa with Lan- 
tern, who had been everything, from a news- 
paper boy to a cook on a steam-trawler. 

And poverty — how poor they were, how abso- 
lutely dependent on each year’s crop for the 
maintenance of home and independence. 

And glamour — how long ago it had fled away 
before the stern realities of mortgaged land 
and frozen wheat, debts, and folly, and bad 
luck. 

And yet what of that? 

They had life and strength, and being for the 
86 


The Book of His Boyhood 

most part young, a certain belief in to-morrow 
— they had sound lungs and big chests, and 
there was still a tune to be battered out of Jack’s 
careworn piano. 

And “ chorus, gentlemen, chorus ! ” cried Jack 
— had he forgotten the duns in his trousers’ 
pocket, or that wheat was only fifty cents? — Not 
at all — but what of that ? 

To-day was Sunday, and it was fine. On the 
table in the kitchen there would presently be 
enough for them all to eat, even if it were 
only pork — and to-day there was to be a pud- 
ding. 

So “ chorus, gentlemen, chorus,” and the little 
parlour rang again. 

And “ By Jove, that’s good ! ” said some one. 
“ Knock’s spots out of old Black’s funeral march, 
eh?” And then Malone, carolling in a rich 
tenor voice, strayed off into an old Irish melody, 
wild and haunting, and not far away from tears. 
Blackett, with a half turn, caught himself watch- 
ing Charlie with a smile. And for the life of 
him Charlie, staring out of the little window, 
could only see an English garden, with its dear 
stiff rows of gaudy flowers, could only hear a 
young voice singing this same song, while the 
rain of a windy shower thrummed fitfully upon 
the window. At the close of the song the pic- 
ture vanished suddenly — and there again were 
87 


The Manitoban 

the white plains, frozen, empty, immeasurable, 
and here were Jack and Tom and the rest in 
the little lean-to parlour. 

Half ashamed, he looked furtively round. 
Had the others also trodden the fields of memo- 
ry? He caught Blackett’s gaze, grave now and 
understanding seemingly, but the others were 
inscrutable. And then there was silence for 
a while, broken presently by a soberer conver- 
sation, during which Lucy Carson slipped out to 
set the midday meal. 

At last it grew time to troop out and bear a 
hand in feeding Jack’s stock for noon, lingering 
in the warm, sod-roofed stables to look at his 
new driver, his “ blood,” as he called her, bought 
last year, and, with wheat at fifty cents, not 
likely to be paid for until next. 

In the yard, lop-sided and ridiculous, stood a 
broken binder, bought long since and paid for 
by instalments to a company who charged a 
twenty-per-cent, interest for their accommoda- 
tion. Jack laughed a little bitterly as he looked 
at it. He had already paid twice its value, and 
still owing some arrears of interest had had his 
best stack of wheat seized this harvest by the 
sheriff. Moreover, the binder, long ago useless, 
had perforce been replaced by another, else had 
his crops remained uncut. Poor Jack, no won- 
der he had learned the art of avoiding creditors 
88 


The Book of His Boyhood 

and every legal shuffle that forbade the pay- 
ment of debt. 

Mrs. Carson came to the door, calling that 
dinner was ready, and, returning, the little party 
gathered round the table. And a well-filled 
table it was, spread with a real cloth, making 
some of the assembly a little shy. 

And it was good to mark a certain girlish 
pride with which Lucy Carson surveyed her 
finished preparations and her guests’ obvious 
satisfaction; good, too, to notice her smile, 
for, already, the only Englishwoman in many 
miles, hemmed in by work, and a partner in 
all Jack’s ceaseless difficulties, the lines about 
her mouth and eyes had grown deeper than 
her youth and beauty warranted. And yet, 
the bride of so unaccustomed a poverty, it 
would have been small wonder if something 
of her disillusionment had not crept into 
her eyes. And could love indeed and all the 
homage of these little gatherings be expected 
to suffice her for the monotony of this prairie 
life ? 

The talk at table was dominated by the price 
of wheat, the interest on debts for machinery, 
the foreclosing of mortgages, the successful 
defeat of sheriffs. And only Blackett and 
Charlie, sitting next to Mrs. Carson and notic- 
ing her silence, tried to turn the conversation 

89 


The Manitoban 

upon new books and the magazines from 
home. 

After dinner the pictures were passed round 
— scenes of empire, scenes of Bond street, scenes 
of old-country sport, crammed with memory and 
contrast and tradition — devoured eagerly, dis- 
cussed with a flattering attention that was prob- 
ably seldom paid to them at home. 

And then once more to song and chorus 
and tobacco, while the short afternoon sped 
by. 

Presently, in an interval between songs, the 
sound of sleigh-bells fell upon their ears, and 
Jack went to the door, and when he turned 
back — 

“ It’s Henry Laville,” he said. 

He drove up to the door — big, blonde, and sus- 
piciously cheerful, very talkative, and brimming 
with good temper. 

No, he would not stay; had to get on home, 
been driving since noon. No, he had not started 
drawing wood yet, was thinking of buying it or 
getting in Souris coal. Yes, it was very sad 
about his wife’s sister, but the end had not come 
sooner than had been expected. 

Roddy was spending most of his time sawing 
wood in Carroll. His wife was well. He 
grinned genially. Would the boys have a smile ? 
In the back of the cutter he had some rye whis- 
90 


The Book of His Boyhood 

key. Yes, it was good stuff, as good as rye 
could be, that was to say. 

The others, crowding round, drank his health, 
only Blackett abstaining. Then Laville, chang- 
ing his mind, said he would come in and have a 
warm. He hitched his horse up to the well-post, 
throwing his buffalo robe over its back. 

He came into the kitchen, shaking hands 
with Mrs. Carson, and asking for a song. He 
was cold, he said, and took another pull of 
whiskey. The others, winking at one another, 
got up a chorus in which he presently joined 
with a huge voice, beating time with his fist 
upon the kitchen table. And then suddenly in 
a swift change of mood he turned to Jack. 

“ What do you want those bounders for? ” he 
asked pointedly, looking at Roper and Malone. 
“ Eh ? Why do you ask a man to come in here 
with them, eh? By gad, I won’t stand it! ” 

There was an awkward silence, broken by 
Blackett, who, falling into talk with Malone, 
saved the situation. Henry Laville got up on 
his feet, towering in the little shanty. 

“ Give us a song, Mrs. Carson,” he said. 

But Lucy shook her head. 

“ I never sing, Mr. Laville,” she replied, and 
tried to smile. Suddenly he stumbled towards 
her with open arms in an endeavour to kiss 
her cheek, but Jack, springing up, pushed him 
9i 


The Manitoban 

back, and he sank down into his chair, appar- 
ently sobered. 

“ Awf’ly sorry,” he said. “ Awf’ly sorry, Mrs. 
Carson ; f ’got myself, you know.” 

Then his glance wandering round fell on 
Roper. 

“ Good old Roper,” he said, holding out his 
hand. “ Jolly glad to see you. How’s things ? ” 

And at this sudden change of front there was 
a general laugh, in which Laville broke sud- 
denly, slapping his leg, and rocking himself 
with wet eyes. 

Then Jack caught Blackett’s arm. 

“ I say, we must get him home, you know,” 
he said, and Blackett nodded. 

“ I’ll go along with him right now,” he said. 
Jack looked at him gratefully. 

“You’re a good ’un, Black,” he murmured. 

Charlie had been standing by and caught their 
whispered sentences. 

“ May I come too?” he asked. “ I’d like the 
drive. I would really.” 

Blackett nodded. 

“Very glad,” he said, and they established 
Laville in his cutter. 

As they drove away, Blackett leaned over the 
back of the seat and feeling for the demijohn 
jerked it into the snow. 

As they entered the little town, in the chill of 

92 


The Book of His Boyhood 

dusk, the chapel bell was swinging, and on the 
wooden sidewalk groups of black-coated wor- 
shippers were moving thitherwards at its appeal. 
Some of them glanced askance at Laville and 
his escort, and Blackett’s lips tightened to a 
grim smile. 

In the middle of the roadway, opposite the 
station yard, stood a little group of idlers, and 
among them, with olive cheeks and sloe-black 
eyes, Pete Lafayette, and suddenly Henry 
Laville caught sight of him. With a swift 
movement he snatched the reins from Blackett, 
pulling the horse up hard, till he foamed on the 
bit. 

“ I’ve got something to say to that blasted 
half-breed,” he mumbled, and staggered over the 
side of the cutter. 

Blackett gave the lines to Charlie and sprang 
after him. 

“ Don’t be a fool, Laville,” he said ; but the 
other, shaking him off, broke into the ring, 
standing now expectantly, with all their eyes 
upon him. 

Blackett made another attempt to get him 
back to the cutter; but Laville, holding to his 
purpose, strode on and faced the half-breed. 

What his quarrel was Blackett did not know, 
but he saw a sudden flame leap up into the 
other’s dusky cheeks, and presently he spat con- 
93 


The Manitoban 

temptuously. Laville thrust out an arm, and 
Pete, staggering back, rolled over into the snow. 

Some men behind him tried to hold him back, 
and one snatched a clasp-knife from his hand. 

But nobody touched Laville, standing un- 
steadily, a toppling giant with blazing eyes. 

With clenched fists Pete rushed at him again, 
breaking from his friends, but a second time the 
great fist, thrust easily forwards, caught him full 
in the face, and he fell back, spitting blood and 
teeth, into the trampled snow, and all the devil 
in him unveiled in his black eyes. 

Again Blackett interposed, but remonstrance 
was worse than useless now, and next moment 
with hands and feet and teeth Pete was tearing 
at Laville in a frenzy of passion, his mongrel 
blood thirsty for slaughter. And the vehe- 
mence of his attack had apparently taken the 
Englishman by surprise, for his blue eyes were 
growing puzzled, and his big limbs strangely un- 
wieldy; and the others, holding their breath, 
wondered, for in the annals of Carroll this 
Henry Laville had been unconquered. What 
was about to happen ? 

Even the folk on the sidewalk paused, their 
eyes held by the spectacle, some chord in their 
being suddenly awakened in response to these 
primal passions. 

And for a minute the chapel bell, swinging 
94 


The Book of His Boyhood 

slowly and without a pause, fell upon ears that 
were deaf. 

And then it came, the unexpected and half 
guessed. Laville reeled, bewildered, with big 
fists pushing away empty air, and at last, top- 
pling over with a thud into the snow, lay still 
and unresisting. 

For a moment nobody moved, while Pete, 
with bleeding lips, knelt above his victim, pound- 
ing his face with both fists, spitting into the 
upturned, wondering eyes. Then the tension 
snapped suddenly, spontaneously. Pete was 
pulled back from the spoils of his victory. 
Blackett stooped over Laville, unconscious, half 
recognizable, the black-coated group on the 
sidewalk gripped their Bibles and moved on, 
and the chapel bell, swinging monotonously, 
filled the air with its rebuking message. 

Presently, with Charlie’s help, Blackett lifted 
Laville into the cutter, and half an hour later 
they knocked at his shanty door, where Mary, 
shutting the Bible, met them without emotion. 

In the flickering light of an oil lamp the 
kitchen looked strangely bare and uninviting. 

“ It is very good of you,” she said ; “ very good 
of you to have taken so much trouble.” 

She spoke slowly and with a certain care to 
pronunciation, which she always observed in 
addressing her husband’s English friends. 

95 


The Manitoban 


“ Not at all,” they murmured, and carried in 
the giant, limp and slobbering and blasphemous. 

His bed? Yes, it was yonder in the corner. 
It was warmer, you see, in this very cold weather 
than the lean-to bedroom. Mrs. Laville spoke 
apologetically. Hope, half hidden in shadow, 
looked at them with pale cheeks and wide, 
frightened eyes. 

Blackett was frank. 

“ There was a fight,” he explained, “ and your 
husband has been rather badly mauled, though 
not seriously I hope.” 

“No, I don’t suppose it is serious. I will 
bathe his face. 

She filled a dipper with warm water from the 
kettle and, taking down a towel, bent over her 
husband, wiping the blood from his cheeks, 
pushing back his hair. Blackett watched her 
for a minute. Then he turned suddenly to 
Charlie. 

“ Let’s get out,” he muttered. 

And they bade her good night. 

“ Good night,” scoffed Blackett as they stepped 
out into the moonlight. “ Good night. Good 
Lord.” 

He filled his pipe. Charlie, held dumb by all 
the changing scenes of this strange Sabbath-day, 
had the picture in the shanty still before his 
eyes. Then : 


96 


The Book of His Boyhood 

“ Is he — dead ? ” asked a hollow, horror- 
stricken voice. 

They both started, and, Blackett holding up 
his lighted match, they looked into a pair of 
questioning blue eyes from which the very light 
of life seemed suddenly to have been wiped 
away. 

Charlie was struck strangely by the boy’s 
wide-eyed misery, and Blackett, with a quick 
sympathy, laid a hand on Roddy’s shoulder. 

To him the whole incident had been merely 
an unpleasant spectacle, in which he had been 
obliged to play a certain part, but to Roddy, as 
he readily guessed, it had meant the downfall of 
an idol, the wrecking of a lifetime’s worship. 

“ He’s all right, Roddy,” he said, cheerily. 
“Don’t be afraid. Take a lot more than that 
to upset your father.” 

But Roddy refused to be comforted, and they 
left him at the shanty door with all his father’s 
disgrace heaped upon his shoulders. 

7 


97 










r 



IX 


In the waning of a January afternoon, where 
various divergent bush tracks led into the main 
trail winding northwards, Blackett, with a load 
of frozen poplars, met old man Luke, who had 
been drawing out logs for a new granary. 

They exchanged greetings, and, their teams 
taking the trail with the accuracy of custom, the 
two men, fur-clad and moccasined, tramped in 
their wake upon the beaten snow. 

The old man was inclined to be garrulous, 
and Blackett, who stood higher in the estima- 
tion of the Canadian section of the community 
than most of his comrades, was a good listener. 

Sucking at his pipe, he let the old man talk 
himself out of the weather and into provincial 
politics, and out of these into more local matters, 
where he was something of an authority, and 
from these into topics religious. 

“You know Wesley Jones by name?” he 
asked. 

Blackett shook his head. 

“Well, well,” the old man was surprised. 
“ He’s a cornin’ man, Blackett, a cornin’ man. 
One o’ the best preachers in the city o’ Winni- 

IOI 


The Manitoban 

peg till he overdid himself an’ had to knock off 
into a country circuit. I guess I was lucky 
hearin’ of it right off an’ gettin’ him for us.” 

“Very,” murmured Blackett. 

“ Oh ! he’s a powerful feller, an’ he’s had a 
rare ministry, a rare ministry, an’ he’s just the 
man fer backsliders.” 

“ Is he indeed ? ” 

“You bet. There’s a sight o’ backsliders in 
these parts.” 

“ I suppose so.” 

“ That’s what — an’ mark me, there’s goin’ to 
be rare times when Wesley Jones gets among 
’em.” 

The old man chuckled, breaking off to rebuke 
one of his horses. 

“ Come out of it, you ol’ devil.” 

Then he turned to Blackett. 

“ I’m sorry to see so few o’ your folk at the 
school-house Sundays,” he said. 

Blackett smoked in silence for a minute. 
Then: 

“ Different denomination, you see,” he mur- 
mured. 

“ No denomination at all — nothin’ most of 
’em,” observed the old man. 

Blackett was silent, and the other, scenting 
disapproval, spoke with a half apology. 

“You’re different to most of ’em — but you 
102 


The Book of His Boyhood 

must see it,” he continued. “There’s Jack 
Carson’s lot— play tennis on Sunday in the 
summer. No wonder they get hailed out. Sing 
songs, godless, worthless songs, in winter. 
Drink themselves into beasts when they’ve got 
the chance. Oh! I know! you call ’em your 
friends ; but isn’t that so — isn’t that so ? ” 

Blackett remained silent. Then: 

“ Look at young West,” said the old man. 
“ As nice a boy as ever I see, an’ even tem- 
pered too, mostly — come out from a good home. 
I’ve got letters from his mother, an’ I met him 
with Roper an’ Carson as drunk as a lord in 
Carroll two days after they’d got their Christmas 
mail. An’ you know what the end’ll be. Look 
at Malone — look at Roper, an’ Brown an’ 
Lanyon, an’ all of ’em, good workers an’ makin’ 
good wages, an’ spendin’ it in a week in the fall, 
an’ then writin’ home an’ runnin’ down the 
country. Bad luck? Course they’ve had bad 
luck, but it’s them as misuses good luck as gets 
hit worst when the other sort comes along.” 

Blackett nodded. 

“ I'm sorry about Charlie West,” he said. 

The old man grew lugubrious. 

“ He’ll go the ways o’ the rest o’ them,” he 
prophesied solemnly. “ Same build, same edu- 
cation, same ideas. He’ll go the ways o’ the 
rest o’ them. Look at Laville. An’ they say 
103 


The Manitoban 

since he fought Pete Lafayette that he’s not 
been right wise — never been the same man even 
when he’s sober.” 

“ He did get knocked about a bit,” observed 
Blackett. 

“ An’ look at him, look at his home — with a 
wife that can’t look anybody in the face, an’ a 
godless young ruffian for a son. I guess that’s 
a picture to make a man think some — to make 
any man think, eh ? ” 

“ Roddy’s a good sort, all right,” murmured 
Blackett. 

“ Has been once,” observed the old man. 
“Was in my Bible class once; but he’s a back- 
slider, an’ slidin’ fast at that.” The old man 
sighed. 

The leading light of his school-house Sunday 
school, and perhaps the oldest settler, he re- 
garded the souls of the community as in a sense 
dependent upon him. At any rate, there was 
no one better fitted to pronounce an opinion as 
to their future, or diagnose their present spiritual 
condition. And if Wesley Jones, B.A., of 
Winnipeg, should prove to be the means of 
bringing back these lost sheep, he, old man 
Luke, would at any rate have some claim to 
recognition in the transaction. 

To Blackett, who had indeed on one or two 
occasions ventured into the Sunday atmosphere 
104 


The Book of His Boyhood 

of the little school-house, this conversation was 
distasteful enough, although, with a calmer 
judgment than most of his countrymen meted 
out to the prevailing Methodism, he had been 
quick to recognize elements in it that made for 
good. And the old man’s complacent disposal 
of the eternal verities afforded him material for 
reflection when their ways diverged. 

Tramping alone in the dark behind his horses 
his mind went back over his companion’s decla- 
mation, and he could not but acknowledge the 
truth that lay in it. 

Regarded as comrades, good fellows, generous, 
easygoing, and ready for enjoyment, how infi- 
nitely more companionable were his countrymen 
than these creed-bound Canadians, with their 
tenacity for work and money, their remorseless 
bargains, their appalling classification of their 
fellow men into the saved and damned. 

And yet again, regarded as settlers, as the 
makers of a new country, the sponsors for what 
Manitoba, in years to come, was to represent to 
humanity — which of these were doing the best 
by the land of their adoption ? 

He looked round upon the settlement as he 
knew it. Who had the best farms, the biggest 
buildings, the finest wheat? Were they not 
these Canadians, starting for the most part with 
no capital but an inherited hardiness, a capacity 
105 


The Manitoban 

for endurance, traditionless all, save for the 
roughest of parental upbringing, and the most 
bigoted of religious instruction ? Yes, it seemed 
a pity that there could not be a mean between 
the two. He supposed that there must be in 
some parts ; but here in Carroll it was plain for 
all to see. To be English stood for debt and 
drink, gentlemanly manners, and general ineffi- 
ciency. To be Canadian stood probably for a 
balance at the bank, a seat in the Bible class, 
and a reputation for hard work and the best side 
of bargains. 

Well, it was a pity; but what was the use of 
complaining? 

And the great night, cold and silent and im- 
mense, offered no key to the difficulty. 

Above him, crowded and brilliant, blazed a 
million stars, and at his feet, growing grey into 
the darkness, stretched a world of snow. On 
the farthest horizon trembled the northern lights 
— delicate, impalpable, a ribbon of faintest red. 
As he crossed the lake to the shanty, a wolf, 
somewhere in the bush, cried suddenly, voicing 
all the loneliness of the night, and the heavy 
breathing of his horses seemed the friendlier by 
contrast. Taking the reins he urged them up 
the steep path to the stable yard, glad to be 
home, glad to force these problems from his 
mind by tasks that lay obvious to his hand. 

106 


The Book of His Boyhood 

Groping for the lantern, he lit it and led his 
team, their long coats powdered with frost, into 
the warm air of the stables, and the two mares 
left at home whinnied a welcome. Then hold- 
ing the light above his head he saw suddenly 
that their racks were filled with hay and the 
stables newly bedded. 

“That’s odd, by Jove!” he muttered, and 
stepping out looked across at the shanty. 

And sure enough there was a light in the 
window. He could see the glow of it falling on 
the snow beyond. And when at last he shut the 
stable door and came up to the house, the smell 
of frying pork came valorously down the breeze. 

“ Very good of somebody,” he murmured, and 
opening the door found Roddy bent over the 
stove. 

“An’, I say, you do keep your things in a 
mess,” he said. “ There’s both sides o’ your 
plates been dirty for a week, I guess, an’ you 
haven’t scraped out your porridge pot for about 
a month.” 

Blackett laughed. “ Never bother about that 
sort of thing. Life’s not long enough, you 
know.” 

“ Well I guess you’re just about slack.” 

Roddy looked at him reprovingly. 

“ It’s very good of you to have done up the 
chores, Roddy.” 


107 


The Manitoban 

“ That’s all right. I liked it, an’ supper’ll be 
ready. Time you’ve got washed.” 

Blackett sank into a chair. 

“You’d be tempting me into taking a wife, 
Roddy,” he smiled. “A wife, by Jove. It 
looks so good to see it all waiting for one like 
this without any trouble. 

Roddy turned the pork. 

“Well, there’s Mabel Jones, an’ Loo Corrie, 
an’ Becca Luke. Fine smart girls too,” he 
said. 

But Blackett shook his head. 

“ Oh, Roddy, you don’t understand,” he mur- 
mured. 

They pulled up chairs and fell upon the 
supper, Roddy suddenly growing silent. 

Blackett watched him curiously, wondering 
why he had come, but forbearing to ask him. 
Afterward, pulling out his pipe, they drew near 
the stove. 

Blackett smoked quietly. 

“ Say, Mr. Blackett,” said Roddy presently. 

“Yes.” 

“You — you don’t want a chore boy I guess? ” 

Blackett puffed away in silence for a minute 
or two. Then : 

“ Why do you ask?” he said. 

“ Cause I’m wantin’ a job.” 

“ But they want you at home.” 

108 


The Book of His Boyhood 

“ I — I’ve left home.” 

“ Left home ? But how will they do without 
you? What about your mother, Roddy?” 

“ She’s all right — I guess I ” 

He stopped, whittling at a piece of firewood 
and staring into the open stove; and Blackett, 
watching his face with the firelight upon it, saw 
that the boy was troubled. 

“ Spit it out, Roddy,” he observed. 

“Oh, Mr. Blackett,” he said. “You remem- 
ber — remember bringing Henry home.” Roddy 
always called his father by his Christian name. 
“You remember how Pete beat him?” 

Blackett nodded. 

“ He was drunk, you know — Henry was.” 

“Yes, I know.” 

“ Pete wouldn’t have licked him else.” 

“ No.” 

“ But since then Henry’s cowed, fair beat. 
An’ he won’t fight Pete again. He’s afraid o’ 
him. I’ve asked him heap o’ times, but he on’y 
stares an’ shakes his head. An’ when he’s in 
town he won’t look at him, but dodges him. 
An’ everybody knows — an’ they laugh. An’ 
the ‘boys laugh, though I’ve beaten ’em all — 
every one. But they know father’s beat, an’ 
the men know — everyone knows — an’ they’re 
laughin’ at him all the while. An’ I — I can’t 
stick it. I’m goin’ to quit, Mr. Blackett.” 

109 


The Manitoban 


“ But your mother, Roddy?” 

“Oh, she’s all right. Henry’s not in town 
now a bit hardly ; stays right home. It’s awful. 
Say, will you take me on ? ” 

Blackett shook his head. 

“ No, Roddy, I won’t. You ought to go 
home and stick it. Right thing to do, you 
know. ’Tis really.” 

But Roddy shook his head. 

“I’ve stuck it more’n two months now, an’ 
I’ve made up my mind to quit. I’m past fifteen 
an’ I can get work anywhere.” 

Blackett said no more, but when Roddy asked 
him once again remained obdurate, although the 
boy was obviously crestfallen. 

“ No, Roddy, you’re wrong, old chap, and it’s 
no good asking me.” 

They sat for a while in silence, then suddenly 
Roddy sprang up and went to the door. 

“ There’s bells on the trail,” he said. 

They listened and presently the sound grew 
nearer and more distinct. 

“ It’s the livery bells,” said Roddy, with quick 
ears detecting their distinguishing tone. “ It’s 
the livery bells. That’s funny, an’ at this time 
o’ night.” 

They stepped out into the frost. 

On the grey ness of the lake was a blot 
moving slowly in their direction, and presently 
no 


The Book of His Boyhood 

up the trail to the shanty came a cutter, travel- 
ling heavily, and hitched apparently to an ex- 
hausted horse. 

At the doorway it stopped and the occupant 
climbing out came towards them. 

“ Thank God ! ” he said in a deep voice. 

“I’ve never been lost before. It’s a terrible 
feeling to be lost. An’ I smashed a runner in a 
drift, an’ I guess the horse is about dead.” 

“You had better come in and feed,” said 
Blackett, and Roddy led the horse down to the 
stable. 

The newcomer laid aside his furs. 

He was a sallow-faced man with gaunt cheeks 
and big brown eyes. 

“You see I’m a stranger here,” he said. 
“A stranger to the West, for the matter of 
that, save for some years in Winnipeg. My 
name’s Wesley Jones. Oh, God, it’s a terrible 
feeling to be lost, isn’t it? An’ with such a 
frost upon the plains too, eh ? A man who was 
lost would soon get frozen, eh ? ” 

Blackett looked at him keenly. 

“ Oh, I don’t know. It’s not so easy to get 
lost as you think. Pretty well settled about 
here, you know, in these days. You had better 
have some food.” 

He ate ravenously, and in silence, until push- 
ing away his plate he bowed his head. 

hi 


The Manitoban 

“Oh, God,” he said, “Oh, God, who hast 
brought me out of the night, and guided my 
feet, I thank Thee. Bless Thou my ministry, 
and fill my soul with an agony for the lost ; ah, 
the lost, who have no trail ; who can see no light 
upon the plains.” 

Blackett watched him curiously, but Roddy, 
whittling still at his stick of wood, .gazed at him 
with some distrust, a little frightened at so 
obvious an intimacy with the Almighty. 

The minister’s glance fell upon him. 

“Your son?” he asked Blackett. 

Roddy laughed. 

Then the minister bent towards him and 
looked into his face. 

“You’ll be a strong man,” he said, plucking 
his arm, and his big eyes mastered Roddy’s 
gaze. “You’ll be a strong man. May your 
faith be as strong.” 

But next day, when Roddy shouldering 
bravely down the winter trail set out into his 
chosen life, the minister shook his head; for 
“ one never can tell what you Englishmen may 
become,” he said. 

And for seven years Roddy came no more 
to Carroll. 


112 


II 

THE BOOK OF HIS BIRTHRIGHT 

I 


8 


\ 


I 


Life moves slowly on the plains and in seven 
years the changes in the settlement were but 
few. 

Immigrants entering the country in annual 
thousands, heralded by newspaper reports, 
dwindled locally to some half a dozen, and were 
quickly lost upon the prairie, creating very little 
difference in the life of the community. 

Of the older inhabitants it might be said that 
for the most part their grooves had but deep- 
ened. 

Some were a little richer, cutting larger areas 
of wheat, using better machinery than of old. 
Others were a little poorer, still hoping in to- 
morrow. 

Some had gone under and disappeared. 

Henry Laville after a prolonged illness, 
resulting, it was supposed, from his fight with 
Pete and the effects of deep drinking in other 
days, had died and been buried, and his widow 
living on in the little shanty had rented the farm 
to a neighbour. 

Then after four years she also had died, but 
“5 


The Manitoban 

not before Roddy had written to say that he was 
coming home, having saved enough money to 
buy the horses and implements necessary to 
work the farm. 

She would have given much, all that she had 
indeed, though that was very little, to have seen 
him again, but comforted herself after her own 
manner with the thought that at any rate he 
would be able to live upon the old farm. 

So she died with his photograph pressed to 
her lips, and her love hidden in her bosom; 
and Hope, left thus alone, was offered a home 
with the Lukes. 

She was to help with the work, and would not 
receive wages; but considering the distressing 
circumstances of her birth, would be fortunate 
in being admitted to a well-conducted and 
upright home; and old man Luke felt that he 
had looked upon the matter from its highest 
standpoint, and thus it came about that on a 
spring afternoon Young Luke stood looking 
meditatively at Hope. 

She was always prettier, he thought, when 
she grew angry, and she was angry now. 

Since Jack went away and got married, 
Young had been the chief man upon the farm, 
and in his father’s absence was its master. 

Like the rest of the family he had objected at 
first to the introduction of Hope; but since his 
116 


The Book of His Birthright 

mother had insisted, and since also she pos- 
sessed a certain charm of countenance if not of 
manner, he had grown reconciled to the situa- 
tion. 

And now he had even offered to drive her to 
Sabbath school, to accord her a place beside 
him in his buggy, to brave the eyes and tongues 
of the community; in other words, to be her 
social champion. 

It was a little disconcerting to meet with so 
unqualified a refusal. 

Her eyes were blazing and her cheeks, grown 
rather pale of late, were rosy again and hot. 

“ But you never come to Sabbath school,” he 
observed. 

“ What’s that to you?” 

“Nothin’, on’y there’s many notices it; an’ 
seein’ you’re father’s — father’s ” 

Her eyes warned him to choose his words. 

“Chore girl,” said Hope. “Yes, go on.” 

“ There’s no sense in gettin’ mad,” said 
Young Luke. 

“ If I do my work, I guess I can go where I 
like,” said Hope. 

“But,' seein’ you’re livin’ with father an’ us I 
think you might. It don’t seem right.” 

“Are you goin’ to preach there then?” 

“No; Wesley Jones is cornin’. It’s a testi- 
mony meetin’.” 

117 


The Manitoban 

Hope continued to wipe the dishes. 

At last he rose. 

“I guess I’ll take Liza Judd, then,” he 
remarked, and went over to the looking-glass. 

Hope watched him, and presently he turned 
toward her again. 

“I’m sorry you ain’t cornin’. I would have 
liked drivin’ you. An’ you don’t get out a lot.” 

He came a little nearer and rested his brown 
knuckles upon the table. 

“ I’m sorry you won’t come,” he repeated. 
She shook her head. 

“ I’m not goin’ there,” she said, and a vision 
rose to her mind of the rows of faces, critical, 
inquiring, pious no doubt, and friendly for none 
but a religious reason. 

“ I can’t go there,” she said, forgetting there 
was a listener. 

“ An’ why not? ” 

“ Oh, you don’t understand. They’d ask me 
if I— if I ” 

“Yes?” 

“ If I was washed an’ saved an’ — an all 
that.” 

Young Luke drew a long breath. It would 
seem that the lost sheep lay ready upon his path. 

“ Well, they’re important questions,” he said. 

She was silent, bending over the plates, and 
her hair strayed about her eyes. 

118 


The Book of His Birthright 

It was nearly two o’clock and the others had 
already gone away. 

Young Luke would seize the opportunity. 

“ They’re important questions,” he repeated. 
“You ought to think about them. You ought 
really. An’ what about the future ? ” 

Then Hope looked at him with her flaming 
cheeks. 

“ I don’t know, an’ I don’t care. An’ why — 
why don’t you go for Liza Judd? ” 

He ignored the question. 

Then — 

“ I wish you were saved, Hope,” he said. 

Life had never surrounded him with tempta- 
tion, and recent revivals had filled him with a 
certain desire for souls. 

His countenance was honest and placid and 
his voice at the moment perhaps a little unc- 
tuous for his years. 

Hope looked him straight in the eyes. 

“ I — I guess I hate you,” she said. And 
really she looked almost beautiful. 

Young Luke bowed humbly to the hand of 
persecution. 

“ There are times when one must speak,” he 
said, but his eyes fell. 

Hope stared at him. 

“ Look here,” he continued. “ Look here, 
Hope.” 


The Manitoban 


“Well, I’m lookin’,” she said scornfully. 
“An’ don’t call me Hope.” 

He met her eyes angry and contemptuous 
and the scorn in her voice lashed him. 

“ Not call you Hope?” he asked very slowly. 
“Well, well, not call you Hope? An’ what’ll 
I call you then. Miss ? ” 

Then her cheeks grew so white that he 
thought she would fall, but she stood upright 
and her eyes never wavered from his face. 

And he picked up his hat and went to call for 
Liza Judd. And it was not until he had gone 
that Hope brushed the tears from her eyes. 

Through the open doorway she could see the 
little school-house shining on the plains, and 
one or two rigs approaching it by different 
trails. 

Afterwards the folk would disperse, and the 
young men would drive out, each with the girl 
of the moment, and the luckiest with the school 
teacher. 

There would be family parties and friends 
going back together, and Becca would be driving 
with somebody, but no one would look for her. 

She felt very lonely and exiled, and the little 
home on the Carroll trail, with all its poverty, 
seemed a paradise of freedom compared with 
this house where she now lived. 

It was already nearly a year since she had come 
120 


The Book of His Birthright 

to live with the Lukes, and it had seemed the 
longest year of her life. 

It was very good of them to have taken her, 
as indeed on many occasions they had not failed 
to point out; and in their way she supposed 
they were kind. 

But the atmosphere of their home stifled her. 
Moreover, until she had come here she had 
never realized that there had been anything 
disgraceful about her birth, or that she was a 
living witness to some distant hidden sin. 

And it was altogether strange and not a little 
alarming to be suddenly placed in a family, such 
as this, its only black sheep. 

And in spite of Mrs. Luke’s motherliness this 
environment of spiritual condescension had 
come upon her life like a chill. 

And indeed but for Mrs. Luke she would 
long ago have begged her way to Winnipeg, 
moneyless as she was. 

She rose listlessly and set about preparing 
tea, and in time by twos and threes the others 
returned, the old man and his wife bringing 
Wesley Jones, Young Luke and Liza Judd, 
and Becca and her friends. They were a merry 
party, sobered into a more subdued enjoyment 
by the presence of the minister, yet conscious, 
as Hope felt, of being at ease in his presence in 
a way that was impossible for her. 

12 1 


The Manitoban 

She hung in the background, bringing the 
hot biscuits to the table, and setting out the 
little dishes of cranberry preserve. 

The grace spoken by the minister included a 
clause in behalf of all outside the fold; and 
though no one looked at her when they raised 
their heads, yet her cheeks were flushed and she 
ate silently. 

Once Mrs. Luke touched her hand and asked 
her if she had slept at all since dinner-time, but 
she shook her head, and the others discussed 
the testimonies of the afternoon. 

From time to time Wesley Jones looked at her 
with his big eyes, and meeting them occasionally 
she wondered if he would talk to her presently. 

And all the while her heart smouldered within 
her, to be sitting at the same table with Young 
Luke and Liza Judd. 

And then, half way through the meal a knock 
fell upon the door, and it swung open and the 
way was filled with a big form and a pair of 
burly shoulders. For a moment the face was 
hidden in shadows, but presently became appar- 
ent, clean shaved, and more than ever bronzed, 
and the blue eyes met Hope’s before they rested 
elsewhere. 

“ It’s Roddy,” she cried suddenly, and half 
rose from her chair, but sat quickly back, 
ashamed of being the first to have spoken, but 
122 


The Book of His Birthright 

with a sudden sense of protection from his pres- 
ence in the room. He came into the room with 
a smile and the others greeted him, making 
room at the table and looking at him curiously. 
Where had he been in these seven silent years, 
and what become ? 

And during the rest of the meal he was plied 
with their questions. 

“ Dakota two years, Colorado, Montana and 
Dakota again,” he said, and told them no more. 
Then he looked at Hope. 

“ So now we are both travellers,” he smiled. 

The others looked at her, turning their eyes 
from him, but she seemed inattentive and he 
noticed that she was pale and her hair untidy ; 
and with the picture he had imagined she 
seemed strangely in contrast. 

Then the conversation drifted upon farming 
matters. 

“So you have come back to the farm?” 
asked the old man. 

Roddy nodded. 

“ For good ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Well, we’re glad to see you back.” 

And after tea they took him round to see the 
cattle, soon to be sent west upon the ranges ; and 
doing so, came upon Roddy’s driver hitched up 
at the stable-door, and 


123 


The Manitoban 

“ My, that’s a good horse,” said Young Luke. 

Roddy looked at her with some satisfaction. 

“ Y es, she can go." 

“ Where’d you get her? ” 

“ Montana. Picked her up on a bankrupt 
ranch. J ust a bit of a long-legged colt, but she 
has good stuff in her.” 

“ Trots?” 

“ Some.” 

They looked round the buildings and presently 
the others dispersed on various trails. 

Then Hope stole out. 

Perhaps Roddy would be alone and they 
could talk, as in the old days, before he went 
away. 

Oh, why could she not go back and live with 
him as she used to do ? 

But she found him at the corral with Wesley 
Jones before him and went back into the house. 

“ I said you would become a strong man,” 
said the minister, looking up into Roddy’s eyes. 

Then a question seemed to be upon his lips, 
for Roddy clapped a hand upon his shoulder 
and laughed. 

“ Good night, sir,” he said, “ good night.” 


124 























II 


Batching on the homestead Roddy soon set- 
tled down into an even way of life, dropping-back 
into the old routine as though his absence had 
been the merest matter of weeks. 

In the interval he had grown almost to the 
stature of his father, big and brown and broad- 
chested. 

His eyes were still those of a boy, but graver, 
and his jaw was a man’s. 

And with his father a memory, and himself on 
the road to some success, and with no apparent 
vices Roddy discovered that the attitude of the 
community towards him had entirely changed. 

The parents were unwontedly affable and 
their daughters regarded him with favour. 

But he Weis shy in their presence and, avoid- 
ing the society of women, set himself to the 
task of keeping his farm in order. 

He rarely visited, but had on a few occasions 
ridden over to spend a Sunday with the Lukes. 

In Hope he had been frankly disappointed 
and not a little puzzled, and between them there 
seemed a barrier hard to understand. She was 
127 


The Manitoban 

listless and subdued, and though it was clear 
enough that the old manner of their intercourse 
could not return, yet he had not been prepared 
for the obvious restraint with which he had 
been met. 

On the whole, however, it troubled him very 
little. It had merely meant the snapping of 
another link with the old irresponsible past ; but 
that already was becoming unreal enough — 
strangely unreal. 

Thus, Roddy, on a J une day, pondering in 
the wake of his horses. At the end of the 
half-mile furrow he lifted his hands from the 
plough, breathing into his hot palms and tilting 
his hat back above his forehead. 

His shirt lay open, revealing a brown bosom, 
swarthy and muscular, but no wind struck it 
with a welcome coolness. 

The horses, glad of rest, panted heavily, and 
on their lean flanks the sweat lay like cream, its 
acrid odour rising slowly on the hot air, the 
incense of labour. 

It was mid-afternoon and already a goodly 
strip of gleaming black earth bore witness to the 
day’s endeavour, striking a clean and fragrant 
contrast to the dusty sods of yesterday. 

Through all the working hours the sun had 
hung shadowless over the prairie, and the great 
world sweltered beneath its challenge. In the 
128 


The Book of His Birthright 

brown grass, at Roddy’s feet, the crocuses had 
long since faded, and the scarlet lilies, the latest 
of spring’s glories, hung languorously upon 
their stems, flaunting drowsy banners on the 
roadway to death. 

And by contrast, at the sun’s appeal, the 
young wheat, straight and strong and vigorous, 
heralded the maturity of summer. 

A hundred acres of it, sown in the early 
spring, lay in one piece beyond the trail, lusty 
and promising, and Roddy’s eyes rested upon it 
with satisfaction. 

It was a good crop, burdened with hope ; and 
Roddy, crossing the trail, stooped down, caress- 
ing the young shoots tenderly with his brown 
fingers. 

For to him, at this time, they represented the 
greater part of life, its promise, its possibilities, 
its end ; and when his thoughts outleaped the 
horizon, he regarded the world and its problems 
in terms of wheat. 

To-day, stretching himself contentedly, he 
looked out over the country placidly enough, as 
one looks upon the face of a friend, foreknowing 
his features and seeking rather the expression 
of his present mood. 

And rising above the day’s oppression with a 
perfect physical fitness, he found the world at 
peace and life good and glad and prosperous. 

129 


9 


The Manitoban 

He picked up the reins and brought the 
horses round for the return. 

The furrow he was to tread cut the prairie as 
though to a ruled pencil mark, straight as the 
flight of a bullet ; and he noted with a certain 
pride the regular gleaming rows of upturned 
sods. 

Already he had broken some thirty acres of 
this virgin prairie and he could not think of 
anyone who could have ploughed them better. 
A mile or two down the trail an Icelander was 
also busy breaking on his quarter section. And 
Roddy had strolled thither last Sunday to in- 
spect his work ; and the superiority of his own 
lay bare beneath God’s sky for all men to see. 

Not that anyone would notice it, he supposed, 
or noticing it think twice about it ; but he was 
glad, nevertheless, that it was so, glad that they 
bore witness under heaven to the excellence of 
his workmanship — these silent brown acres that 
he had upturned through the hot weeks. And 
it was good work, worth doing well for its own 
sake alone, good, clean, conquering work, and 
wonderful too when one thought that never 
since the world was made had these acres 
yielded to the will of man ; when one thought 
that he alone of all men of all ages was the first 
to levy tribute on their possibilities. Day after 
day his eyes had watched the narrow brown 
130 


The Book of His Birthright 

ribbon reeling off the earthboard of his plough, 
reeling into an everlasting oblivion. 

And what story of the ages might it have told, 
what legends of hunt and slaughter and life and 
love ? 

It seemed a pity that so ancient a dynasty 
should slip away into eternity thus unconfessed. 
Presently, grey and bleached, in the dry grass, a 
buffalo horn, lying half hidden, caught his eye 
and he flung it to one side upon the ploughing. 

And as it lay there, wan, and a little pitiful in 
the splendour of the sunlight, it seemed to 
Roddy to stand for all that vanished past. He 
could imagine it proud, and in its rightful place 
upon some angry woolly head long since bowed 
down to death. 

But when and how and why? 

Ah, they were strange thoughts, these, that 
had come so often, and all unbidden into his 
mind of late. 

Buffalo horn, brown grass, scarlet lily, pale 
crocus, they had all descended the selfsame 
road. They all stood for an early careless day 
that had found its evening, that would never 
return again, as trail and fence and all the 
growing wheat bore abundant testimony. 

And of the era to come? 

Well, on this hot afternoon, it was good to 
think that he was laying the foundations of the 

131 


The Manitoban 


glorious superstructure that assuredly must 
follow some day. 

Of his own personal future Roddy in these 
days thought very seldom. A jack rabbit, 
bright-eyed and lithe, scuttled away from the 
horses’ approach, and Roddy, stooping suddenly, 
flung a clod of earth which broke into fragments 
a yard or two behind it. 

As it fled across the brown sods he laughed, 
the spell of his reflections broken ; a deep good- 
tempered laugh, broad-chested, escaping easily 
from sound lungs. 

“ Coo — ee.” 

Roddy turned, and at the headland behind 
him saw a buggy drawn up and waiting appar- 
ently for his approach. 

His quick eyes told him that old man Luke, 
his youngest son, the only one at home now, 
and Becca, were its occupants. They waved to 
him, and leaving his horses, he strode across the 
ploughing. 

“Aren’t you cornin’ in to town, Roddy?” 
they asked. 

“ No,” he answered, and across the prairie 
saw other buggies driving towards Carroll. 

“ It’s an important meetin’, an’ you ought to 
be there. There’ll be lots o’ opposition. An’ 
I’m doubtin’ if we’ll get our prohibition after 
all.” 


132 


The Book of H is Birthright 

But Roddy knew nothing of local politics and 
shook his head. 

“ I guess you’ll have to get on without me,” 
he smiled. 

“You ought to come, Roddy; you ought 
really.” 

“You don’t know which way I’d vote if I did.” 

And this apparently had not occurred to the 
old man, for he became silent. Then, 

“ My, that’s a good bit o’ breakin’, Roddy,” he 
said. 

Roddy flushed under his brown skin. 

“ Goes a bit hard,” he said. “ Not as well as 
I’d like.” 

“ But it’s good work. You’re makin’ the 
place look smart, Roddy, real smart.” And, 
“You must be workin’ hard, Mr. Laville,” 
smiled Becca. 

“Then you won’t be cornin’?” the old man 
repeated, but Roddy shook his head. 

And they drove away. 

He returned to the plough thoughtfully. 
Praise had been rare to his experience, and it 
had certainly sounded strange to be called Mr. 
Laville, and desired to take a part in the coun- 
cils of Carroll. And as he revolved these things 
in his mind there was born in him a sudden 
sense of his position as an owner of land, a new 
consciousness of his power. 

133 


The Manitoban 

Self-reliant, perforce, since his earliest boy- 
hood, his years of wandering had merely 
developed his resourcefulness, rendering him 
more entirely adequate for the struggles of a 
western existence. But that he should be of 
any importance in the community, of any 
influence with his fellow-men, was an idea that 
came to him now with a sudden and strange 
emphasis. 

And yet of course it was merely an attribute 
of age, the natural consequence of upgrowing, 
combined perhaps with the circumstances that 
had made him the lord of three hundred and 
twenty acres of Manitoban soil. 

It was odd indeed that he should never have 
thought of it before. 

And the idea was not unpleasant. 

It seemed suddenly to widen the horizons of 
life ; and as he fell into step behind the plough, 
it filled his mind with a swift, quaint sense of 
added dignity. But sitting in the doorway after 
supper a new and quite perplexing sense of 
inefficiency swept over him. 

For who was he to stand among his fellows, and 
what could he tell them on any single subject, 
or of what possible value might his opinion be ? 

He knew a little of farming, could fell a tree 
with anyone, had only once been beaten in a 
fight, and that was three years ago in Montana 
134 


The Book of His Birthright 

by a man of universal reputation, and many 
years his senior. But what of all that? He 
felt an overwhelming desire to unburden him- 
self to some riper experience, to drink in 
wisdom from some maturer judgment. 

In all these years, working from farm to farm, 
in shanty and caboose and camp, but always 
surrounded by the loneliness of the plains, he 
had never felt the need for any such companion- 
ship as this. 

It was odd that a chance word on the plough- 
ing should suddenly have awakened it. 

As he smoked he looked thoughtfully round 
the shanty. It seemed very bare and offered 
but little comfort to his present mood. 

On the top of the cupboard lay a Bible, the 
only literature he possessed ; and so far as he 
remembered he had never voluntarily looked 
upon its pages. But now with a sudden impulse 
he took it down and read it in the doorway. 


135 



































V I 
































X 












* 












Ill 


“ Blackett, old chap, congratulate me. By 
Jove it’s simply unbelievable. I swear it is — 
simply unbelievable.” 

Blackett looked up at Charlie with a smile. 
Sun-burned, debonnair, light-hearted, he seemed 
very little older to-day than on the summer 
afternoon seven years before when, in spotless 
raiment, he had left the train at Carroll. 

“Simply unbelievable,” he repeated and 
walked restlessly round the shanty. 

“ Sit down,” said Blackett, pushing him some 
tobacco. “Sit down and tell me all about it. 
Stop rhapsodizing, there’s a good chap, and 
talk plain English.” 

But Charlie ignored the tobacco, and with his 
back to Blackett, stood at the door, looking out 
over the lake into the plains beyond. 

“ Simply unbelievable,” he said. 

Blackett smoked in] silence and resumed his 
newspaper. 

“You’ve had some lunch?” he asked pres- 
ently. 

“Lunch?” said Charlie. “Lunch? I don’t 
i39 


The Manitoban 


know. Ton my word I don’t know. I don’t 
believe I have.” 

“ Then sit right down. There is pork. 
There are potatoes. I will fry you some eggs.” 

Blackett waved his hand. He cherished his 
poultry and was proud of their produce. 

Charlie sat down and began to partake. 

And in the intervals of the meal he jerked out 
his tidings. 

“ Guess you knew things were pretty bad with 
me. Crops seized, you know. Horse died.” 

Blackett nodded. 

“Well, I’d made up my mind to jump it — : 
quit — clear out — vamoose.” 

Blackett smoked silently. He had watched 
Charlie with interest from the time he had come 
to Carson’s to the day on which he had bought 
the farm beside Laville’s. 

He had heard the omen of their neighbour- 
hood discussed with head-shakings. He had 
watched Charlie for four years spending his 
money and reaping but little result. And he 
had been sorry, since between them there had 
grown a certain friendship. 

Charlie went on. 

“Well, it’s all right. Dear old people. Sent 
over a thousand. God bless ’em. Square it 
all up. Set me going again. Ripping, isn’t 
it?” 


140 


The Book of His Birthright 

“ I’m glad,” said Blackett. 

Charlie laid down his knife and fork and 
waved the cheque. 

Then he grew solemn. 

“ It’s the absolute last, you know,” he said, 
looking gravely at Blackett. “ I can’t even 
think how they’ve managed to send me this.” 

Blackett remembered three previous occasions 
on which cheques had come. Three in six 
years. Ah, those dear people at home ! 

“ It’s wonderful,” said Charlie, “ how one’s 
people believe in you, isn’t it? Now you think 
I’m a fool. I know you do, and so I am — a 
decent sort of fool perhaps and all that, but a 
fool all the same. To you people out here I’m 
nothing, but to them I’m a hero, struggling 
against unparalleled odds, you know, and all 
that, the son in Canada building up a labor- 
ious fortune. God bless ’em, but it’s rather 
funny, don’t you think? Sometimes I’ve 
thought of telling ’em the sort of chap I really 
am, but, bless you, they wouldn’t believe me. 
They would say it was humility, self-depre- 
ciation, or something of the sort.” He laughed 
but turned to Blackett again. 

“ I’m not going to let them down, Black, if I 
can help it.” 

They smoked in silence for a little, then, 
“ Rum thing, isn’t it, how much a fellow’s ulti- 
141 


The Manitoban 


mate success may depend on the harmless 
delusions of his people?” 

Blackett nodded. 

“ But I fancy it’s not all delusion,” he said. 
“ Some of it is what you might call faith in the 
possibilities.” 

He smiled. 

“ You’d not deny the possibilities? ” he asked. 

Charlie bolted his last mouthful. 

“ Black, old man, come in to town with me. 
There’s Jinny and the buckboard outside and I 
can’t go in alone ; can’t really, you know, and 
you’ve not got much work going. You’ll 
come? ” 

Blackett pondered and suddenly resolved. 

“Yes, I’ll come,” he said. 

As they drove down the trail Charlie talked 
incessantly, eagerly, and Blackett listened with 
a smile as he painted the golden future that 
inevitably awaited him. 

For now, having settled all outstanding debts, 
he would have a balance in the bank and all the 
crop would be his own. And would it not be 
the best crop of recent years ? 

Blackett glanced round. Yes, the wheat 
looked well, nor could he remember to have seen 
the prairie filled with a greater promise. Bar- 
ring accidents it should be a record year. 

With his wheat drawn in and the wood got 
142 


The Book of His Birthright 

up, he would run home to England. He felt 
that he needed it after his nearly seven years’ 
absence. 

Think of London after a Manitoban winter. 
Think of Regent Street and Piccadilly and the 
park and the lights, and the theatres, and the 
joys of a life that rolled on wheels of comfort, 
and brought a new enjoyment at every turn. 

Think even of the country village, clean 
streets, and a Christmas dinner. 

Yes, it was hardly believable. 

Blackett smiled again. So the boy had got 
the glamour of home upon him, had forgotten 
the gaudy sunshine and the prairie. He 
chuckled. 

“ Think of fogs, and trams, and a cold in the 
head, and an atmosphere like the bottom of a 
thirty-foot well,” he said. 

But Charlie would have none of it. 

“You’re a pessimist, Black. I always said 
you were — the very deuce of a long-jawed 
pessimist.” 

But Blackett shook his head. 

“ I’ve known a good many men go home with 
its glamour upon them. They always come 
back, even those who have been the biggest 
failures. They always come back. The prairie 
draws them, calls them I think, and they can’t 
resist it.” 


M3 


The Manitoban 


He nodded meditatively. 

“ I don’t know what it is exactly, but there’s 
something in the plains that lays a spell upon a 
man, something large and undefinable. A sort 
of freedom, I think, a kind of intimacy with the 
big things of nature, space and wind and sky, 
that one cannot get at home. Not so light- 
hearted ? 

Well, no, I suppose not, but not a bit less 
glad. We’re too near the heart of things to 
babble and be hilarious.” He broke off. 

“ They always come back,” he said. 

Presently they passed Roddy at work upon 
his breaking, and he waved a hand to them. 

“ Funny, how that beggar has altered these 
last years,” said Blackett, as they watched his 
towering form holding patiently behind the 
plough. “ Gone out into the plains and become 
like them. Hanging about town would have 
spoiled him just as towns spoil most people; 
and the bigger the town the greater the 
damage.” 

Half an hour later they drove into Carroll, 
still asleep under the sky, and only a very little 
altered in these last seven years. There was 
another hotel and a new doctor, but the side- 
walks were still wooden, and Main Street was 
the only one. Blackett regarded it a little 
anxiously and was relieved to find it empty. 

144 


The Book of His Birthright 

Then as they passed the first hotel Charlie 
hesitated, half drawing up. 

“ We ought to drink a health to the old folk,” 
he suggested, but Blackett shook his head. 

“ Remember last time,” he said, and they 
drove on. 

The door of the bank was closed. Next to it 
stood the second hotel and suddenly thence 
came Jack Carson. 

“ Hullo, boys,” he shouted. “ Taking a day 
off? That’s good. Come in and have a smile.” 

Charlie hesitated again and flushed, glancing 
at Blackett, who sat impassively staring at the 
horse’s ears. 

“ Come in and have a smile,” repeated Carson. 

Charlie’s colour deepened, but there was 
something of challenge in Blackett’s silence as 
he toyed with the reins. Then he jumped 
down and stepped swiftly into the bank. 
When he came out, Jack Carson was still 
lounging by the buckboard talking to Blackett, 
but Charlie brushed by him almost fiercely. 

“So long, Jack,” he said. “Regards to the 
missis.” And then turning to Blackett: 

“ For God’s sake drive ! ” he muttered. 
“ Drive like the devil ! ” 

A mile out of Carroll Charlie turned in the 
seat and held out his hand. 

“ Black, old chap, you’re a ripper,” he said. 
145 


10 


The Manitoban 


“ That’s the first time I’ve ever banked a cheque 
in there and come out sober.” 

He drew a long breath, looking at the other 
with glad eyes. 

“ I wish to God I was a strong-minded beggar 
like you, Black,” he went on. 

But Blackett shook his head. 

“ I don’t think anybody is really strong- 
minded,” he said. “ But there are some who 
have sort of guessed how weak they really 
are.” 

In Charlie’s shanty they sat for a long time 
talking matters over, Charlie full of his future 
plans and the best disposition of his affairs. 

Presently Blackett went across to the shelf. 

Resting upon it were a couple of pewters, 
won at school for racing and rowing, and 
against one of them was balanced a photograph. 
He took it up and looked at it seriously. Then : 

“ By Jove, it does one good to see a face like 
that, a sweet English face. Who is it ? ” 

Charlie looked over his shoulder. 

“Oh, that?” he laughed. “Yes, she was a 
good little sort, Ethel Moore. Neighbours at 
home, you know; knew each other when we 
were children.” 

“Are you fond of her?” 

“ Rather. Yes, in a sort of a way, you know,” 
and he laughed again. “ We used to write to 
146 


The Book of His Birthright 

one another when I first came out, but it’s 
dropped lately. I wonder what she is like now. 
I once thought I would marry her, Black. I 
should like to see her again — if I were square, 
you know, and all that.” 

Blackett replaced the photograph. 

“ It’s a good face,” he said. “A sweet, good 
face.” 

During supper there was a knock at the door 
and Roddy came in, big and brown. He was 
glad to see Blackett, and between himself and 
Charlie, since they had become neighbours, there 
had already grown some sort of intimacy. 

He listened gravely to the good news. 

“ I’m glad,” he said, but Blackett thought he 
noticed the faintest shade of contempt in his 
voice, for Roddy had a small opinion of un- 
earned riches. 

Charlie was exuberant, repeating his plans for 
Roddy’s approval, and presently referred to the 
incident at the bank. 

Roddy nodded sympathetically. 

“ It is hard to refuse,” he observed. “ But 
there’s times when you’ve got to. I had to 
once, over the way,” he indicated the border, 
“ an’ they’re a sight more touchy down there.” 

He smoked meditatively. 

“ The man grew mad, called me a . Well, 

I wouldn’t like to tell you in cold blood just 
i47 


The Manitoban 


what he called me. I told him that if he 
repeated it I should kill him.” 

Roddy seldom spoke about his adventures 
and the others waited curiously. 

“ Well?” 

“ He did repeat it twice. He had a gun, you 
see, an’ he was mad.” 

Roddy was looking thoughtfully over the 
prairie. 

“Well?” 

He stretched himself and his blue eyes came 
back to theirs. 

“ I killed him,” he said. 

Later in the evening Blackett and Roddy left 
the shanty together, and for a little while Roddy 
drove Blackett on his way. 

The night was very dark and their faces were 
hidden from each other. Presently Roddy 
spoke hesitatingly, a little shyly. 

“ Say, have you — have you ever read the 
Bible, Blackett?” 

Breaking suddenly on the silence the question 
sounded strange. 

“ Well, yes,” murmured Blackett. 

“ I’ve been readin’ it lately, for the first time,” 
continued Roddy. “An’ I wanted to ask 
somebody — I’m not fond o’ Wesley Jones an’ 
his crowd — I wanted to ask somebody. Do 
you believe in religion, Blackett?” 

148 


The Book of His Birthright 

Blackett looked at him curiously. 

“ Religion ? ” he repeated. 

“ God an’ eternity an’ that.” 

Blackett smoked silently for a minute. 

“ Why, yes,” he said at last. “ I suppose no 
thinking man can deny that there’s some sort 
of God — He has many names, Roddy, and in- 
stinct older than all the hills tells us that we 
live on when our bodies die.” 

“ There was a fellow,” said Roddy, “ a parson 
chap he had been, who told me that it was all 
balderdash, religion an’ sin an’ that. Said that 
science proved we were just sort o’ guided by 
our tendencies an’ what we inherited an’ that.” 

“And I can’t disprove it, Roddy; but if it 
were so, if we really believed it and acted logic- 
ally upon such a belief, don’t you see how it 
would cut at the root of all progress and justice 
and all that makes life worth living? I don’t 
know if anybody can disprove it, and yet it’s 
simply unthinkable, and the judgment of all 
humanity tells us that we’re free.” 

Roddy was silent. 

Then presently, 

“ What do you reckon’s the truth about Jesus 
Christ?” he asked. 

“ I’m no theologian, Roddy.” 

“ But you’ve thought some, I guess.” 

Blackett took his pipe from between his teeth. 

149 


The Manitoban 


“ I don’t know what you’re driving at exactly,” 
he said, “ but if you want my views, here they 
are. I don’t believe I’ve ever told them to any- 
body else.” 

“Yes — go on,” said Roddy. 

“ You must grant a God.” 

“Yes.” 

“ And you must give me that the highest at- 
tribute, the greatest factor in human experience 
is love.” 

Roddy nodded. 

“ Grant that too,” he said. 

“And therefore it seems to me, since the 
Creator cannot be less than His creature, or be 
guided by any standard less great than the 
greatest, that it isn’t illogical to suppose Him a 
Being in whom love or something higher is su- 
preme. 

“ Yes— go on.” 

“And on the other hand, you have man with 
an inborn instinct for Deity, to be accounted 
for, which has led him in all ages to all lengths 
of self-sacrifice. It seems to me that commu- 
nion between these two is not only possible but 
probable. I speak as a fool, Roddy.” 

“ Keep goin’.” 

“Of those who profess such a revelation, 
Christ is incomparably the greatest, and has 
given us conceptions of God and conduct upon 
150 


The Book of His Birthright 

which the dominant races of to-day are striving 
to build their social fabric. It’s because these 
doctrines have emerged from their bed of super- 
stition still undimmed that I believe in the di- 
vinity of Christ.” 

“An’ His death an’ risin’?” 

“ I like to think of them at any rate as suffi- 
cient proofs of love and immortality to have 
sent His followers into the world with an enthu- 
siasm which is going to win it.” 

Roddy held out his hand. 

“ Thanks,” he said. “ I hated to ask you all 
this. Good-night.” 

Blackett went home thoughtfully. 

“ Now I wonder,” he mused. “ I wonder 
what has sent his mind into that channel.” 

Then as he filled his pipe the incident in the 
shanty came back to his memory, and 

“ By Jove,” he said, “ I shouldn’t like to make 
him angry.” 

Roddy returned slowly to his shanty, but as 
he neared it, changed his mind; and passing 
his doorway held on down the trail towards the 
little school-house. 

This lay about two miles distant and its 
windows were glowing in the dusk. 

As he approached he saw that one or two rigs 
were drawn up outside, the ponies hitched to 
posts planted there for the purpose. Through 

151 


The Manitoban 


the open door the sound of voices came 
confusedly towards him, from which he gathered 
that he had not come too late to worship. 

It had taken him some time to bring himself 
to the step that he contemplated, and he entered 
the little hall with something of defiance. As 
he seated himself, he became suddenly the 
object of all eyes, and one or two of the older 
men came down to him with words of welcome. 

Roddy resented the spiritual over-friendliness 
of their manner, but thanked them gravely and 
held his peace. 

Then Wesley Jones, a little leaner, but with 
all the old enthusiasm in his eyes, came up and 
shook his hand. 

“ I’m glad to see you, Roddy.” 

“Thank you. I’ve come to take the saycra- 
ment." 

The minister stared at him a little doubtfully, 
but presently with a rare and opportune tact 
flung all criticism to the winds and looking into 
Roddy’s eyes forbore to ply him with questions. 

“ I am glad you came,” he said. 

And so it happened that Roddy went home in 
the starlight filled with a strange and solemn 
purpose. 

For to him there had been something extra- 
ordinarily real and almost terrible in the simple 
ritual of this Methodist communion. And 
152 


The Book of His Birthright 

though he knew instinctively that he could 
never foregather with these followers of Wesley, 
sing their hymns or record their experiences, or 
believe very greatly in their revivals ; yet he felt 
himself to-night to be at one with God in a sense 
that would surely henceforth dominate his life. 

He made no resolutions, contemplated no 
reformation, but through a night that was 
hushed and reverent walked in the presence of 
his Master. 




















* 






- 




'• * 


' 




t 


f 




•- 












IV 









155 






























IV 


From the dingy kitchen Hope looked out 
upon a world at peace. 

Between the buildings lay a patch of wheat, 
tall enough now to mould itself to the winds, 
gleaming and abundant. 

And beyond this, stretching into the bluest of 
horizons lay the prairie, a tideless sea, golden 
and russet and appealing. 

Some of its fragrance, conquering the hot 
yard, crept about the kitchen, and rendered 
ironing at once the most hateful and laborious 
of household duties. 

In these days Hope had come to question 
even her rights of freedom and rejoicing, but 
now with a sudden sense of revolt left her task 
and stood in the doorway. 

And on this glorious unclouded day the swift 
desire for liberty swept over her. Beyond a 
corner of the stables she could see the brown 
flanks of the bronco pony, corralled unwillingly, 
a prisoner like herself. 

Why should not they both escape or one 
wild hour? 

1 57 


The Manitoban 


The old man and his son were in town, and 
the new English chore boy was in the stable 
and was of no account anyway. Becca was 
staying with friends — fortunate Becca, who had 
so many friends — and Mrs. Luke could not 
mind her absence for so short a while. 

Obeying her impulse she took down the 
bridle from its nail upon the door and ran 
quickly to the corral. 

She had never ridden the bronco before or 
indeed dared to ask for the loan of any of the 
horses, but she had already learned to ride as 
well as most Western girls, and her lack of fear 
made up for any absence of experience. And 
she rode bareheaded and without a saddle. 

The bronco came to her willingly and took 
the bit with a good grace; and ensconcing 
herself upon his back, she rode out upon the 
plain, rode out, as it seemed, into summer and 
strength and youth, beyond creeds and classes, 
out into the glad air beneath the kind eyes of 
God. 

And as she rode the zest for life grew strong 
in her again. 

And what of toil and loneliness, condescen- 
sion and looks askance? They fled to the 
winds. For this was life, this rushing of the 
sweet air, these well-knit rejoicing limbs that 
carried her, this proud little shaggy head with 
158 


The Book of His Birthright 

its gleaming eyes and its nostrils snuffing the 
breeze, these brown plains buoyant to the tread, 
bathed in sunshine pure and limitless. 

She would forget everything else, for this was 
life — to ride she cared not whither ; to be alone 
with the skies, to be free, and under no com- 
mand. 

She felt almost jealous at the sight of a 
buckboard crawling up the trail, the only visible 
sign of gross humanity. 

Its driver being immersed in his own 
thoughts had no eyes for the land about him, 
nor was he conscious of this rider upon the 
plains until the thudding hoofs sounded close at 
his side. 

Then he looked up incuriously and met 
Hope ; her hair, wind-blown, straying about her 
forehead ; her eyes, black as ever, shining like 
stars, wide and frank. 

She took him by surprise, and for a moment 
he looked at her in silence, pulling up involun- 
tarily. 

Listless? Why she was glorious, glowing. 
At the look in his blue eyes, her cheeks flushed 
and she smiled at him, the old open smile — 
and it was the Hope of seven years ago, grown 
seven years older, nor any longer the kitchen 
help of the Lukes, who was wont to smile upon 
him stiffly across their supper-table. 

„ *59 


The Manitoban 


It was the Hope of the old days, of the furrow 
and the lake, come suddenly back to him, 
crowned with a riper womanhood. And, 

“ Oh, Roddy,” she said, “ I guess you never 
thought I could ride barebacked.” 

He looked at her with a slow absorbing gaze, 
at her easy poise, at the shaggy little bronco. 
Her eyes grew shy under his scrutiny, but he 
knew that this was the Hope of his boyhood, 
impulsive, intimate. 

The reins were hanging loosely in his hand 
and he smiled at her. 

“ Why no,” he said at last. “ I didn’t think 
you could look as well as that on horseback.” 

She laughed light-heartedly, enjoying his 
surprise. And, 

“ Oh, Roddy,” she said, “ I got so tired to 
death o’ cookin’ an’ mendin’ an’ washin’ — an’ 

there’s no one like ■” she pulled up short, 

remembering her years. 

“Yes,” said Roddy, “like ?” 

“ It’s all so different to — to what it used to be, 
you know, before — in the old days, you know.” 

Roddy nodded, with an air of understanding. 

“ Poor old Hope. Yes, it must be different.” 

They were travelling side by side now towards 
the Lukes’ buildings, the horses at a walk. 

“ They’re awfully good to me, Roddy,” she 
said presently. “ They’re awfully good an’ 
160 


The Book of His Birthright 

kind, an’ that, but — but they know I’m not the 
same as them, you see.” 

Roddy was puzzled. 

“ Not the same? ” 

She was indeed a great deal prettier than 
Becca, he thought, but this would not seem to 
be her meaning. 

She coloured. 

“ Oh, in lots o’ ways,” she said. 

Then she took a deep breath of the summer 
air, and something in her look, triumphant, 
expectant, urged Roddy to self-sacrifice. 

“ Gallop away, Hope, an’ enjoy yourself,” he 
said with a smile. “ I’m cornin’ up to fetch a 
coulter from the old man’s plough an’ I’ll be 
there directly.” 

She looked back at him one moment with 
laughing eyes, and the next was thudding down 
the trail, as fast as the bronco’s unshod hoofs 
could carry her. 

Roddy followed in the rattling buckboard and 
found himself laughing at her exuberance, her 
old enthusiasm for freedom and action. And 
as he watched her growing smaller down the 
trail, it dawned slowly upon him that life without 
her would henceforward and forever seem alto- 
gether empty and undesirable. 

It was as though a veil had fallen suddenly 
from his eyes ; as though, in a moment, all that 
n 161 


The Manitoban 


had lain dormant and unguessed in his boy’s 
heart, since the day in Silver Lake, had awak- 
ened with a giant’s strength and announced 
itself as love. 

There was no deep change of feeling, nor 
indeed any great exaltation of spirit, only the 
awakening of a firm and irrevocable belief that 
some day she must give herself to him. 

With this new point of view it was only 
natural that he should go back over their rapid 
interview. 

She had talked to him with her old frankness 
— the frankness of a girl — but had shown no 
reluctance to part company at his bidding. 

Her eyes had admitted all his old rights to 
intimacy, but they were eyes asleep. Well, she 
would be worth waking, worth winning. 

Then he reviewed her position at the Lukes’, 
and was not satisfied. 

He must bring her back to him after har- 
vest, when his first crop had been gathered in, 
threshed and sold, when he might rightly talk of 
marriage. He could not bear to think of her as 
unhappy, and yet he was certain that something 
was amiss. She had hinted at some inferiority 
and the idea made him hot, for wherein indeed 
could it lie? 

As Luke’s latest imported chore boy from 
London helped him to unhitch at the stable 
162 


The Book of His Birthright 

door, Hope rode up to the corral. They 
watched her. 

“Rides well, don’t she?” twanged the new 
arrival. 

Roddy was silent. 

“ Dashed well she rides, but it’s a pity she’s 
a ” 

Then he happened to look into Roddy’s eyes, 
and his cheeks grew the colour of chalk. 

Roddy walked thoughtfully up to the house, 
his purpose a thousandfold stronger, the weeks 
to harvest grown suddenly interminable. 

Mrs. Luke greeted him warmly, and Hope, 
back at her ironing, was unwontedly cheerful. 

Mrs. Luke boiled some tea, and calling Hope 
from her work, smiled at her heightened colour. 

“ I guess you must go out ridin’ again, Hope,” 
she said, her old eyes twinkling as she listened 
to the girl’s chatter. 

Hope turned to her gratefully. 

“ Oh, Mrs. Luke, do you think I might ; do 
you think they’d mind?” 

“Gracious, no. Who’d mind, child? We 
want you to be happy — eh, Roddy? We want 
to see her happy.” 

“Yes,” said Roddy with his eyes on Hope. 

It was strange, this sudden transfiguration. 
After tea the women went back to their duties, 
but Roddy lingered, listening to Hope’s remem- 
163 


The Manitoban 


brances of the old days, occasionally suggesting 
another; trying, a little clumsily he felt, to gain 
still more of her confidence, to realize, a little 
vainly, he was sure, how great or small a pro- 
portion of her thoughts he had filled in those 
half-forgotten times. 

Mrs. Luke, watching them keenly, seemed 
suddenly struck by this new aspect of their 
acquaintanceship, for presently stealing out 
with the pails, she went off alone to milk the 
cows, leaving Hope ironing tardily, unaccus- 
tomed to the art of combining toil and conver- 
sation. 

And it was only when Roddy, remembering 
his errand, went out to inspect the plough that 
she realized her neglected duty. 

She ran out to the corral, where already Mrs. 
Luke was at work upon the last pailful of milk. 

“ Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. 

But the old woman laughed and shook her 
head. 

“ Never mind, Hope, my dear. You’ll have 
your share o’ hard work yet. Run along an’ 
enjoy yourself.” 

Hope looked puzzled, but went back to the 
house at her bidding, and Mrs. Luke, rocking 
herself, chuckled softly. 

“ She’s asleep yet,” she murmured. “ Fast 
asleep.” 


164 


The Book of His Birthright 

“ And who’s asleep, Mrs. Luke ? ” 

The old woman looked up, and Charlie, lean- 
ing over the fence, smiled down upon her. 

“Caught you unawares,” he laughed. “And 
who’s asleep? ” 

But Mrs. Luke shook her head. 

“ I was on’y talkin’ nonsense to myself, 
Charlie. I’m a great old woman for talkin’ 
nonsense, eh ? ” 

He laughed again. 

“You’re a dear old woman forgiving advice,” 
he said. 

“ I’m so glad about your good news, Charlie.” 

“ It is good, isn’t it? ” 

“An’ you won’t be givin’ up the farm after 
all?” 

“ Devil a bit of it, Mrs. Luke. 

Presently she twinkled. 

“You’ll be goin’ home likely in the fall?” 

Charlie was silent. 

“An’ not cornin’ back alone, perhaps?” 

Then he shook his head. 

“You’re a foolish old woman, Mrs. Luke. 
I’m beginning to think you’re right about 
yourself.” 

She grew more serious. 

“ Charlie, you’ll take care of it this time. 
You’ll not throw it away. You’ll take real good 
care of it ? ” 


165 


The Manitoban 


He nodded. 

“ That’s what I mean to do, Mrs. Luke.” 

“ An’ now you may carry my pails in.” 

He lifted them over the fence of the corral 
and walked by her side towards the house. 
The evening had grown suddenly still, and the 
old woman, looking shrewdly into the distance, 
prophesied rain. 

Hope crossed the yard to meet them, still 
flushed with the glory of her gallop. She 
offered to take charge of the milk, but Charlie 
denied her; and Roddy, towering in the door- 
way, saw that his eyes were held by her beauty 
— saw it with a sudden sense of memory that 
sent his mind groping back through the years. 

“May I stay for supper, Mrs. Luke?” he 
asked. “ I think there’s goin’ to be a storm.” 
And indeed as they entered the house its first 
mutterings echoed dully down the plains. 




































































































































. 






























































































































IV 


The occasion that reveals the hero affords 
him rather an opportunity to his dormant 
possibilities than an occasion for snatching the 
gift of courage from the gods. And so it is that 
these few incidents, trivial enough in themselves, 
were rather the springs upon which the blinds 
rolled up from Roddy’s eyes than the donors of 
any faculty for vision. 

Through a long line of Lavilles, clever and 
refined and to a certain extent spiritual, it is 
probable that the desire for culture lay as 
innately in his being as the puritan wish for 
God, bestowed by an obscurer peasant an- 
cestry. 

But whether or no this be a true interpreta- 
tion, the fact remains that in these early days 
of June Roddy’s horizon had widened with an 
almost unbelievable suddenness. 

A dozen words from a neighbour had awak- 
ened in him the consciousness of position, of the 
responsibility of being. A casual glance had 
led him to the world of letters, entered through 
the gates of the gospel ; and a sentence or two 
169 


The Manitoban 

had revealed to him, as he supposed, the motive 
power of the man for whom he had the most 
respect. 

And it was characteristic of him, of the plains 
upon which he dwelt and the life he had led, 
that the new sensation, which had entered his 
life on a summer afternoon to the trample of a 
bronco’s hoofs, had not sent the others stagger- 
ing to the four winds of heaven, but had fallen 
sweetly into its rightful place in his new scheme 
of life. 

For one brief hour it had indeed held him in 
a very complete mastery. The prairie, wet and 
fragrant from the brief storm of rain, had 
seemed a road royal, arched by triumphant 
stars. The night had been thronged with 
incense, and the sweet wind had taken his arm 
like a friend. 

But the old world had spread about him 
familiarly enough next day, and in the usual 
routine of farm work life had soon readjusted 
itself. 

And although the incident of his meeting 
with Hope clung about his memory as the 
gladdest and purest joy that life had thus far 
vouchsafed to him, his visits to the Lukes 
became scarcely more frequent than before, and 
no further opportunities had arisen for so inti- 
mate an intercourse. 

170 


The Book of His Birthright 

And thus it came about that he held to his 
breaking this summer fallow, working through 
the long golden days, reading his books by the 
shanty candle, and revolving them in his mind 
down the black furrows of the morrow. By hay- 
time he had read the Bible twice, noting the 
verses that appealed to him and seemed easy of 
understanding. He had mastered the “ Pil- 
grim’s Progress” and one or two of Shake- 
speare’s plays, and had dipped into Browning 
and “ Plain or Ringlets,” and found the latter 
the more incomprehensible of the two. 

Then on a hot Sunday he took a walk round 
his sloughs, discovered that the grass was ripe 
for cutting, and put away his books. 

For harvest would follow close upon the heels 
of haying and the days for scholarship were 
obviously at an end. 

And though it was with some regret that he 
came to this conclusion, yet the strenuous weeks 
to come were after all the best that the year had 
to offer, and beyond them lay home and Hope. 

He came back from his tour of inspection in 
time for tea, and entering the shanty found 
Johnnie Peterson with a puzzled brow, bent 
upon a problem. 

Johnnie was a youthful Icelander whom he 
had engaged as a helpmate for the next two 
months, and he stood now gazing with some 
171 


The Manitoban ' 


little awe and considerable curiosity at a delicate 
slip of cardboard. 

Ensconced in his brown and rather dirty 
palm, it looked frail and ill at ease. 

“Well, Johnnie, an’ what have you found?” 

The boy looked up. 

“ There was a feller here with Blackett,” he 
said. “ An’ he asked for you ; an’ when I said 
you was out he gave me this.” And he held it 
towards Roddy, who took it gingerly between 
his fingers. 

It was a phenomenon with which he was 
unacquainted, and he looked upon it with 
interest and admiration. 

“ My word, it’s a pretty little thing, Johnnie, 
eh?” 

And indeed it looked strangely dainty and 
bizzarre in its unaccustomed surroundings, and 
bore upon one surface of it the gossamer 
legend, “Cyril Trevelyan, Dorrington Club, 
Mayfair, W.” 

Roddy read it several times, and presently 
placed it reluctantly upon the cupboard, where 
it shone between a grease pot and an axe, a 
lonely emissary of civilization. Presently, 

“ It’s a visitin’ card,” observed Johnnie supe- 
riorly, with reminiscences of a week in Win- 
nipeg, “an’ I guess he’s a traveller or a book 
agent, or somethin’.” 


172 


The Book of His Birthright 

“ What was he like ? ” asked Roddy. 

Description was Johnnie’s forte. 

He indicated a Homburg hat and a flannel 
suit with immaculate creases and every button 
intact. 

He suggested spectacles and an aquiline 
nose, a well-kept appearance and an English 
accent. He guessed at middle age and con- 
siderable prosperity, and presumed an entire 
ignorance of the things that mattered. 

“Shouldn’t think he’d ever split a block o’ 
wood in his life,” concluded Johnnie, with some 
contempt. And subsequent discussion over the 
tea table merely strengthened his opinion of the 
stranger’s general fatuity. 

But evening brought them no solution to the 
problems of his errand or identity, and for the 
next few days only the white card bore witness 
to his existence. 

And then it was that on a later afternoon 
Johnnie from his point of vantage on the load 
observed Blackett’s buggy, bumping across the 
prairie to the slough in which they were at work, 
where the hay lay curled in cocks, and Roddy 
pitched giant forkfuls for disposal on the 
waggon. 

“An’ the dude’s with him,” added Johnnie. 

Roddy looked round, and as the buggy drew 
up, found himself regarded by a pair of grey 
i73 


* The Manitoban 

eyes that observed him with a very searching 
gaze. 

Roddy looked at him gravely. He was a new 
type and for the moment he felt instinctively 
distrustful. 

But as Blackett introduced them he shook 
Trevelyan’s hand readily enough, and 

“ I’m glad to see you,” he said. 

“ Busy haying? ” asked Trevelyan. 

Roddy nodded silently. It was obvious. 

Trevelyan climbed down from the buggy and 
laughing at the dubious look in Roddy’s eyes, 
seized a fork. 

“ Let me have a try,” he said. “ For it must 
be twenty years since I was in a hay field.” 

His manner was well-bred and easy, but there 
was no suggestion of superiority and Roddy 
began to like him. 

“Johnnie,” he said, “throw down the other 
fork.” 

Trevelyan laid his coat upon the seat of the 
buggy and rolled up his sleeves. His arms 
were not devoid of muscle, but looked strangely 
white in contrast to Roddy’s, and a gold signet 
ring shone upon one of his fingers. 

With an unaccustomed fork he lifted little 
parcels of the sweet wiry hay, to the top of the 
load, where Johnnie, barelegged and irreverent, 
received them with open amusement. 

i74 


The Book of His Birthright 

Roddy watched him gravely, and when at 
length the haycock had been entirely transferred 
to the load, led the horses silently to the next. 

Trevelyan grew keen on his work, and pres- 
ently the perspiration broke out upon his 
cheeks and forehead. 

He laughed back at Blackett. 

“ I’m not in much sort of training for manual 
labour,” he said, and Blackett scoffed. 

“Manual labour?” he asked. “My dear 
man, you don’t suggest that that is manual 
labour? Why, you would take all day to fill a 
load with spoonfuls like that.” 

Trevelyan sighed, and mopped his face with 
a snowy handkerchief that again brought wonder 
to Johnnie’s eyes. 

“ I give it up,” he said, and handed his fork to 
Roddy. 

Roddy stuck it leisurely into the cock, and 
without apparent effort lifted it bodily upon the 
load, the fork bending and creaking beneath the 
weight of hay. 

“ By Jove,” said Trevelyan, and Roddy 
laughed at his discomfiture, the deep, good- 
tempered laugh that revealed, more than 
anything else, his absolute bodily health. It 
struck Trevelyan with a sudden satisfaction, like 
appropriate music. 

“ It’s on’y custom,” said Roddy, and lifted the 
i75 


The Manitoban 


next one as easily, almost inundating Johnnie 
with a brown wave of prairie grass. 

“ It’s on’y custom,” he repeated, and held 
another, poised for a moment in mid-air, his 
biceps tense and swollen, lifting the rims of his 
rolled-up shirt sleeves. 

Then he placed it on the load and stood for 
a minute smiling at Trevelyan, leaning easily on 
the fork, a giant at rest. And Trevelyan’s heart 
went out to him. 

Presently the load was completed, a big load 
towering above the horses, well built upon the 
waggon. 

Roddy threw up the reins to Johnnie, a 
diminutive figure on this immensity of hay ; and 
the boy crying shrilly to the horses, drove slowly 
across the prairie towards the homeward trail. 

“An’ mind the dip, Johnnie,” warned Roddy. 

Then he fell behind, talking to the men in 
the buggy, and gathered that Trevelyan was 
merely an English friend of Blackett’s taking a 
year’s holiday and spending part of it in Canada. 

Roddy envied him a little in the anticipation 
of the countries and oceans that he proposed to 
visit, and later found himself telling of his own 
brief travels in Manitoba and the Western 
states. 

Trevelyan seemed curiously interested in 
Manitoban farming, and Roddy presently found 
176 


The Book of His Birthright 

himself talking very freely of his experiences, 
and entirely unconscious of the scrutiny with 
which his words and bearing were being re- 
garded. And indeed so engrossed did they 
become that Roddy did not notice the predica- 
ment into which Johnnie had fallen until a 
sudden echo of his blasphemy fell upon a pause 
in the conversation. 

Then they saw that the waggon had appar- 
ently stuck fast in a hollow of the prairie, where 
a moister earth was clinging about the wheels. 
The horses, pulling alternately in the traces, 
seemed powerless to move it, and the boy, with 
an exhausted vocabulary, was pulling angrily at 
their mouths. 

“ An’ I told him to mind the dip,” said Roddy. 

“ It looks a bad place to take a load through,” 
said Trevelyan, but Roddy shook his head. 

“ It saves goin’ round a lot, an’ they’ve done 
it before,” he said. 

“ Why don’t you take them over there? ” and 
Trevelyan pointed to a spot, drier apparently, 
and an easier roadway, some two hundred yards 
away. 

But Roddy was obdurate. 

“ They can do it easy enough, if they like, 
on’y you’ve got to keep them to it.” 

He took the reins from Johnnie and climbed 
upon the load. 


12 


177 


The Manitoban 


Then he pulled the horses round and brought 
them back above the place where the wheels had 
been held. 

Blackett and Trevelyan watched him, and 
they heard him speak to Johnnie, standing 
beside him on the hay. 

“ Now see here, Johnnie, you must keep ’em 
to it in a place like this.” 

He bent down with a loose rein, and shouted 
a word at the horses. Then the great whip 
uncurled from his hand and fell suddenly about 
their flanks. 

Straining together at the traces the two horses 
took the load as one, crossed the slough at a 
run, and mastered the rise without apparent 
trouble. 

Roddy gave back the reins to the boy, and 
rejoined the others. 

“ It was in ’em all right, you see,” he explained. 
“ An’ that’s the on’y way with difficult places. 
You’ve got to take ’em solid an’ with a run.” 

He looked seriously at Trevelyan, and the 
older man nodded. “ I fancy you’re right,” he 
said. 

After supper they bade him farewell, and as 
they drove home together Blackett turned slowly 
to his companion. 

“ Well?” 

Trevelyan leaned back and closed his eyes. 

178 


The Book of His Birthright 

“ A giant of a fellow,” he mused. “ And reads 
the Bible and Browning — saw them in his hut.” 

Blackett laughed. 

“ He has developed quite a desire for literature 
lately,” he said. 

Trevelyan nodded. 

“ Good,” he said. “ Waking up, you sup- 
pose ? ” 

“ Something like that.” 

“ Reads the Bible and Browning, and knows 
how to drive too, by Jove.” 

“ He’s good with horses.” 

“A Methodist?” 

“No, I think not. Not exactly.” 

“ But not a pagan? ” 

Blackett shook his head. 

“Is he — there are no ties?” 

Blackett laughed. 

“ He isn’t married, if that is what you mean. 
And I don’t fancy that he has even been in 
love.” 

“ That’s better still.” They drove in silence. 

“ Have you ever seen him — roused at all ? ” 

Blackett shook his head. 

“ No,” he said slowly. 

“But it’s possible,” said Trevelyan with 
conviction. “ With those eyes of his it’s more 
than possible.” 

As they neared the lake a buggy, driven very 
179 


The Manitoban 


fast, overtook them ; and above the whirring of 
its wheels rose a girl’s laugh as she replied to 
some remark of her companion. 

Their faces passed swiftly in the dusk, but 
Blackett and Charlie recognized one another, 
and bade good night ; and Blackett saw that the 
girl was Hope. 

Then as they turned up the trail to his shanty 
Trevelyan emerged from his meditation. 

“ Dick, old man,” he said slowly and gladly, 
“ He’ll do — this heir of ours — he’ll do.” 


180 


VI 

















































VI 


Roddy was up before five on the morning of 
the Carroll races. 

The cool dawn, clear and radiant, promised a 
day that should be cloudless, and the races 
would be plentifully attended. 

As he unbarred the stable door, Nellie, his 
Montana pony, looked round at him and whin- 
nied, and entering he passed his hand lovingly 
down her lean flanks, allowing her presently to 
nuzzle his shoulder as he combed her tawny 
mane. 

At the rush of sweet air coming in through 
the open doors, she threw back her ears 
playfully and pawed upon the wooden floor of 
her box with hoofs that were fretful of imprison- 
ment. 

“ All right, old lady,” whispered Roddy. “ Y ou 
can go for all you are worth this afternoon — for 
all you are worth, old rascal.” 

She chewed at his shirt sleeve, nodding her 
dainty head, and Johnnie coming in with a song 
and a pail of water added his caresses. 

“Oh you daisy,” he said. “You little daisy. 
An’ she’s lookin’ fit to bust herself, Roddy.” 

183 


The Manitoban 

“ She’ll have to go near doin’ it, John, if she’s 
to win this afternoon.” 

“She’ll do it,” said Johnnie confidently, 
jumping up and down. “ There’s not a horse 
round here can touch her.” 

But Roddy shook his head. 

“ There’s Bill Playgood’s trotter cornin’ from 
Poplar River, an’ there’s Jack Luke’s Ginger 
an’ Charlie West’s new driver. An’ she’s a 
terror by all they say. Oh, she’ll have to go 
all she knows if she’s goin’ to pull it off.” 

“ An’ she will, too. She’s tearin’ fit, Roddy.” 

“She’s well trained all right,” said Roddy, 
complacently. “An’ she won’t break, not if 
she’s trottin’ mouth to mouth, an’ on’y a lap to 
go.” 

And while Johnnie performed the grosser 
duties about the stable he dedicated the next 
two hours to her toilet. 

For on this July afternoon all who might 
would gather into Carroll, where there were 
races of all descriptions to be run, from the 
Carroll cup for the fastest trotter to the hundred 
yards sprint for boys under twelve. 

There would be one or two travelling min- 
strels, and at night a concert in the wooden 
skating rink. 

And for this one day all who might would 
take a holiday, coming in from lonely shanties 
184 


The Book of His Birthright 

to foregather with their fellows and abandon 
themselves, a little heavily perhaps, to recreation 
and revel. 

To Roddy the social side of the day’s enjoy- 
ment appealed very little, but he was glad to 
feel that now he had an opportunity of testing 
the worth of his Montana pony, bought with his 
first savings, a colt unbroken, and lovingly 
trained in his spare moments. His quick eye 
had picked her out of a herd, being sold by a 
bankrupt rancher, and he was glad now that his 
boyish judgment had not been at any rate 
entirely at fault. For in the last few years 
Nellie had grown tough and slender, and each 
season had added its gift of speed. 

By ten o’clock she stood upon the trail, trim 
and buoyant, and Roddy in his big hat and best 
suit led her confidently between the shafts of his 
buckboard. 

Johnnie, full of the day’s possibilities, had 
already stolen away into town, clambering up 
into a waggon-load of Icelandic relatives, that 
had passed earlier in the morning. 

But Roddy, more deliberate, went back into 
the shanty and for the first time in his life looked 
twice at the parting of his brown hair. 

Then he climbed slowly into the buckboard 
and drove down the trail. 

But not yet into Carroll, for striking out 

185 


The Manitoban 

across the country, leaving Silver Lake upon his 
left, he held south and east. 

Two or three buggies met and passed him 
filled with brown-faced passengers, uncomfort- 
able in white collars and Sunday clothes. 

One or two of these greeted him and some 
looked curiously at the pony, whose powers were 
a matter of guesswork to most of the community. 

Roddy drove leisurely and presently met Jack 
Luke, who half pulled up. 

He was married now, and his heir peeped over 
the dashboard. 

“ Lost your way, Roddy? ” he called. 

But Roddy smiled. 

“Just takin’ a drive round, to loosen her 
joints,” he murmured and held on down the 
trail. 

Half an hour later he drew up in the Lukes’ 
yard and looked about him. 

The farm seemed entirely deserted, and 
alighting he knocked upon the door. 

The old woman opened it presently and 
smiled up into his anxious eyes. 

“ I was just drivin’ round,” he said clumsily, 
“ an’ thought perhaps there was some of you 
might like a lift into town.” 

Mrs. Luke shook her head. 

“ They’ve gone,” she said. 

“All of them?” 

1 86 


The Book of His Birthright 

“All but me, an’ I’m too old fer gin-bangs 
an’ such like. Hope went in an hour ago.” 

“Hope?” queried Roddy crestfallen. 

The old woman nodded. 

“ Charlie West came by an’ drove her in.” 

“ Came by? ” doubted Roddy. 

She smiled. 

“ It does seem a long way round, seein’ he 
lives next door to you.” 

Roddy coloured, quick to notice her raillery, 
but it had not been unkind. 

“ Won’t you come yourself? ” he asked. 

But she shook her head. 

“ Y ou would have to bring me back an’ I guess 
you mightn’t have room. 

“ Now drive away into town like a good boy 
and win your race.” 

But to Roddy the day had grown suddenly 
harsh, the plains gaudy and arid, and he put 
Nellie along at a pace that in view of the efforts 
before her he should never have attempted. 

“ By Gad,” said Mike Malone, whom he 
passed upon the trail, “ that mare can go, an’ 
he looks like meanin’ to win too.” 

And he made a mental resolve to lay a spare 
dollar on Roddy’s success. By the time Roddy 
entered Carroll the little town was already well 
filled and he was continually greeted by loungers 
and passers-by. At every hook and hitching- 
187 


The Manitoban 


post, horses, kempt and unkempt, of all sizes 
and breeds and ages, were standing captive. 
The livery stables, doing a roaring trade, were 
already more than full, and the yard was 
crowded with rigs of every description. 

Men in broad-brimmed hats sauntered about, 
smoking big cigars, comparing notes on the 
progress of crop and discussing the prospects 
of the day. 

The Carroll children, suffering penalties of 
shoes and stockings, had faced these disabilities 
manfully and pervaded the place, frolicsome and 
cheeky. 

Some of them clung about Roddy, forgetting 
the awe with which in other days they had been 
taught to regard him. They hovered round 
Nellie, but hung back, despite boastful vauntings 
from her flat ears and the whites of her eyes. 

Some of Roddy’s fellows of his Carroll days, 
noticing her beauty, came round him now with 
words of slow admiration, and their praise was 
sweet to him. And in the moil of escaping the 
children, attending to Nellie and overhauling 
the sulky, he forgot his disappointment, entering 
the hotel presently, peaceful and hungry. 

The room was crowded, and had not one of 
the diners risen as he entered he would not have 
obtained a place. 

As it was, he found himself seated between 
1 88 


The Book of His Birthright 

Carson and Blackett, on whose other side sat 
Trevelyan. 

They exchanged greetings, and presently the 
landlady, buxom and personable, laid her hand 
upon his shoulder. 

“Well, Roddy,” she said, “ I guess you’ve still 
got the same old appetite, an’ it’s good for us 
that they don’t all eat like you.” 

And since the inclusive charge was a matter 
of twenty-five cents, there was some truth in her 
remark. 

Roddy laughed, and Carson looked up at the 
landlady. 

“ He hasn’t been crossed in love yet, or had 
his wheat frozen. You wait a bit.” 

“ Hark to the grumbler,” said a fresh voice, 
and turning round Roddy saw that Charlie had 
entered the room. He was scanning the table, 
looking for vacant places, and behind him stood 
Hope. 

Her eyes were bright, and when she saw 
Roddy she smiled, though his face was grave. 

“ There’s no room for you, Charles, my boy,” 
said Carson. “You must try Mother Jones’s. 
How are you, Miss Hope ? ” 

Hope, abashed under the gaze of many eyes, 
bent her head and said she was well, and the 
next moment went out with Charlie. 

Roddy continued his meal stolidly, but his 
189 


The Manitoban 


eyes had been observant, and in the faces of the 
men opposite him he had read that which sent 
the blood spinning faster down his arteries. 

And presently he heard them speaking to one 
another. 

“ By Gad, that was a pretty girl.” 

“Who is she?” 

“ I tell you Charlie’s in luck, boys, an’ don’t 
you forget it.” 

And the desire in his heart grew suddenly 
tenfold. 

He paid his twenty-five cents to the landlady 
and laughed at her rueful countenance until she 
too broke into smiles. 

“Just the same old Roddy,” she said, and laid 
her hand upon his sleeve. “An’ never mind, 
Roddy boy, go in an’ win. An’ see, you’re back 
in the Dominion now, an’ right welcome.” 

Roddy smiled and thanked her, telling her 
that he meant to try, and she wondered at the 
queer light in his eyes, for to him Nellie and the 
cup had become matters of small importance. 

He went out into the hot street with her words 
in his ears. 

“ Dominion? ” 

Oh, it was a fair dominion that had smiled 
upon him and grown suddenly so far away. 
And was it ever indeed to be his? 

“ Dominion.” 

190 


The Book of His Birthright 

The words sounded ironical. 

He turned toward the stables to take a last 
look at Nellie, but his thoughts were far away 
and his eyes unseeing ; and so much so indeed 
that he passed several of his friends without a 
shadow of recognition. 

Trevelyan spoke to him twice before Roddy’s 
eyes regarded him seriously. 

“ Going down to get ready for the race? ” he 
was asking. 

“ Why, no — yes. That’s what.” 

“ Going to pull it off? ” 

“ Tell you later.” 

“ How’s the little mare?” 

“ Fit.” 

Roddy held on his way and Trevelyan looked 
after him amusedly. 

“Well, I have met better conversationalists, 
by Jove,” he murmured. 

Half an hour later Roddy drove out to the 
course in his racing sulky. 

The prairie was hard and dry, and but for a 
single storm no rain had fallen for many weeks. 

He hitched up his pony to one of the corners 
of the ring, and his glance, roaming among the 
groups scattered upon the grass, fell suddenly 
upon Hope and Becca standing together and 
watching a foot race between some boys. He 
strolled toward them, and as he came they 
191 


The Manitoban 


turned their faces to him, frank girl faces with 
eyes adance to the light and movement around 
them. 

They chattered to him without restraint, 
recounting their doings and telling of the folk 
they had met, and Roddy’s spirits rose as he 
listened to them. 

Presently Becca was captured by some Cana- 
dian friends, becoming one of a group surround- 
ing a banjoist on a tub. 

And Roddy turned to Hope. 

“ So you are enjoyin’ yourself? ” he said. 

“ Why, yes, of course I am. It’s just lovely 
seein’ all the people an’ the racin’, an’ all, 
an’ Oh, Roddy, are you goin’ to win? ” 

“ Can’t say. There’s Playgood, you see, an’ 
West, an’ some more.” 

She was silent. 

“You an’ West are pretty good friends,” 
suggested Roddy. 

“ Mr. West drove me in. Wasn’t it good of 
him?” 

“ Very.” 

“ He was passin’, you see, an* the others 
hadn’t any room, an’ I had never thought about 
cornin’ in at all, until he came. Oh, I’m so glad 
I came, Roddy.” 

He was looking at her curiously, but her eyes 
were fearless and unconscious. There was a 
192 


The Book of His Birthright 

quarter of an hour before the race and the 
sulkies were collecting about the course. 

Roddy bent over her. 

“ I say, Hope, do you — are you ?” 

But the sentence died on his lips, for looking 
up, his eyes encountered Charlie’s, gay and 
laughing. 

“ Hullo, Roddy, an’ how’s the mare?” 

Roddy’s face had clouded, but Charlie’s 
manner compelled a smile. 

His ease dominated the conversation, and 
Roddy, towering silently beside him, knew 
himself by comparison crude and unpolished. 

And what indeed was the secret that all these 
home-bred Englishmen possessed — Blackett, 
Carson, Trevelyan, Charlie — all of them? 

Surely it must be something more than the 
knack of turning a phrase or using the right 
word. 

And half despising it, he yet felt its lack and 
a desire to share it with them. 

He looked at Charlie thoughtfully, at his 
handsome youthful face ; and caught, as he did 
so, the caress in his voice. 

No wonder that women loved him, and no 
wonder that Hope was even now responding 
with bright eyes and a heightened colour. 

And yet she was a child of the air and the 
lake and the furrow, and should surely be able 
13 *93 


The Manitoban 


to fathom the emptiness of soft words and a 
lowered voice. 

But the bell, gentlemen, the bell. 

“ Our race, I think,” said Charlie, and Roddy, 
suddenly reminded, turned away to his sulky. 

“ Good luck,” sang Hope to both of them. 

Love and sport — they tug at most men’s heart 
strings, and if the one is more persistent in its 
wooing for attention, the other for briefer 
moments holds a mastery well-nigh as complete. 

And being young and healthy, before the first 
lap was finished, all Roddy’s heart was in the 
machinery of his driver’s stride and the poise of 
her eager head. Bent forward with his hands 
almost touching her polished loins, his eyes 
never wavered from the course. He sat impas- 
sively with closed lips, though his opponents 
were urging their horses with quick sentences. 

At the end of the first lap he was third, and 
both Playgood and Charlie were seemingly 
outdistancing him. 

The second lap found him no farther behind, 
but Charlie was leading and Playgood still in 
front of him. 

Roddy drove with apparent unconcern, and 
only once at the far end of the course, when a 
handkerchief fluttered over the wire barrier, the 
flicker of a smile crossed his lips. 

“ Oh, Roddy, make her go,” cried an anxious 
194 


The Book of His Birthright 

voice ; and Johnnie leaning over the wire, looked 
after the whirring wheels with entreating eyes. 

Half way on the third round, Roddy drew 
level with Playgood, and already the famous 
trotter from Poplar River showed signs of 
restlessness. 

The whites of her eyes rolled uncertainly, and 
as Roddy drew ahead, she suddenly broke into a 
canter, fretting at the bit. 

Playgood leant back on his lines and Roddy 
with a half turn of his wrist suddenly forged 
ahead and took the inner side at the bend. 

There was a shout from the onlookers craning 
eagerly over the course. Playgood swore and 
pulled out, and the race lay between Charlie 
and Roddy. 

And now the Montana mare began to skim 
the ground like a thing of wings ; and Roddy, 
leaning forward a little, carried the light of vic- 
tory in his eyes. 

They entered the last lap with Nellie’s nose at 
the hub of Charlie’s wheel. 

The dust flew about them. There was a 
hoarse shouting and a conflicting change in the 
betting. The girls waved handkerchiefs and 
scarfs, and as they entered the last stretch there 
was a rush of those behind to see the finish. 

The white tape flickered across the course 
between the judges’ hands, and it was character- 
195 


The Manitoban 


istic of Charlie that at the same moment he 
turned his face towards Roddy’s sulky with a 
laugh. 

The Montana pony drew level, and for a few 
paces they ran nose to nose. 

Neither broke, and then with her beautiful 
stride Roddy’s pony came away, a foot, two 
feet, a yard, and ran at last into the tape the 
winner by her own length. There was an 
instant crowd round the sulkies, and lean-faced 
men, who drove or bred or raced, clustered 
about Roddy with comments and praises and 
not a few offers of purchase. 

Roddy sat in his sulky, brown and triumphant, 
smiling down upon the others, and shaking his 
head at all temptations to part with his mare. 

Through the crowd Charlie pressed towards 
him with an outstretched hand. 

“ By Jove, your mare’s a good ’un, Roddy,” he 
said as they shook hands. 

And so Nellie came into her own. 

From now there set in a dispersal of the 
company by two and threes, some returning to 
more distant homes, others gathering back into 
Carroll for the evening festivities, and for the 
hour Roddy was a hero. 

At the stables he was again surrounded with 
congratulations, and the points of the race were 
further discussed and analyzed, Roddy leaning 
196 


The Book of His Birthright 

nonchalantly against the door post, listening 
with his grave smile. 

At last, tired of praise, he stretched himself, 
and leaving the little group of stable hands, 
strolled out across the yard. 

The evening air was cool now and sweet, 
lending its laurels to his brow, and with the 
glow of victory still upon his cheeks he came 
suddenly upon Blackett and Trevelyan. They 
shook his hand and added their congratulations, 
standing for a little while discussing the race. 

And as Roddy left them, bronzed and burly, 
Trevelyan took Blackett’s arm with half a sigh. 

“Ah, youth and strength and success,” he 
said. “ How good they are ! And when, I 
wonder, did you and I last feel as Roddy is 
feeling now — at Cambridge, was it? or on our 
first peak in Switzerland ? Or earlier at school 
when we got our first eleven caps ? ” 

At the next corner Roddy met Becca and 
Hope, arm in arm, and carrying parcels of 
confectionery. 

He stood above them laughing, and shook his 
head as they offered him some of their maple- 
sugar candies. 

“ Oh, Roddy,” cried Hope. “ I’m so glad you 
won, and isn’t Nellie a darlin’? Poor Mr. West, 
an’ he was so near winnin’ too.” 

Roddy smiled. 


197 


The Manitoban 


“ He didn’t mind. He took it well. He — 
he’s a good sort, Hope.” 

Hope nodded. 

“ He’s takin’ me to the concert,” she said. 

“An’ drivin’ you back, I suppose?” 

Roddy spoke carelessly, but there was some- 
thing in his voice that brought her eyes to his 
face, where for the first time she suddenly 
divined the trend of his thoughts. 

She tosssed her head a little. 

“Why of course,” she said, and under his 
gaze her cheeks flushed for the first time. 

Becca had turned aside to speak to some 
friends, and they stood for one moment alone 
and facing one another. 

“ I went round to Luke’s this mornin’, 
meanin’ to bring you in,” said Roddy. 

“ I’m sorry.” 

“You — aren’t goin’ back at all on your old 
friends, Hope?” 

“ You were a little late, weren’t you? ” 

She spoke lightly, and in a tone that was 
strange to him; and looking down at her 
gravely, he realized that the old comradeship of 
their boy and girl days would not come again, 
and was already being replaced by a new and 
more precarious relationship. 

While as for Hope, since to her somewhat soli- 
tary position this situation was novel and by no 
198 


The Book of His Birthright 

means unpleasant, there was perhaps a little exag- 
geration in the intimacy with which she turned 
to Charlie and bade Roddy a very good evening. 

Nevertheless a little later Roddy took his way 
to the concert hall. In his mind there still 
lingered some possibility of persuading Hope, 
and in the thought of it the triumphs of the 
afternoon seemed small indeed. 

Leaning back among the shadows at the end 
of the hall, it was some time before he caught 
sight of her face. 

She was gazing at the evening’s comedian with 
a rapt expression, and he was satisfied to see that 
her companion seemed, for the moment at any 
rate, to claim but a small share of her attention. 

Yet he was leaning towards her and his arm 
lay idly along the bench at her back. It might 
have been merely the attitude of ease. 

Roddy glanced at the crowded seats that 
intervened, and once for a moment looked 
unwillingly at the stage. 

The chuckles of the audience sounded foolish. 
Then he turned on his heel and went out into 
the open air. 

Nellie whinnied as he approached, but he did 
not caress her. 

And instead drove silently home, for even the 
choicest of silver cups is cold company on a 
moonlight trail. 


199 















<r 




VII 








VII 


Manitoba under wheat — spread out beneath 
the bluest of skies a vast and glistening sea — 
this is the dream of those who love her best. 

And even now to some extent it is being 
realized, and already the traveller may lift up 
his eyes and look upon plains that to the utter- 
most limit are veritably white unto harvest. 

Even Trevelyan, too wrapped up in social 
reformation at home to have the imperial view, 
seemed struck with the wealth of these great 
stretches of wheat. 

They were walking down the trail and at the 
parting of two ways paused. 

“ So you have decided to tell him ? ” 

“ Yes, absolutely.” 

“ And counted the cost to him if — well, if he 
proves unsuitable at home?” 

“ He won’t.” 

“ I would like to see his face when he hears 
your errand, this heir of yours.” 

“ Why don’t you come with me? ” 

Blackett shook his head. 

“ Better not,” he said. 

203 


The Manitoban 


Trevelyan walked slowly across Roddy’s 
pasture, and Blackett turned into Charlie’s 
shanty. 

“So your neighbour won the cup, Charlie?” 

“Yes, bad luck to him,” laughed Charlie. 
“ And deserved it too, for he has picked up the 
best trotter I have ever set eyes on, and he 
knows how to make her go.” 

“ But you enjoyed yourself pretty well ? ” 

“Why, yes, I had a pretty good time, of 
course.” 

Blackett laughed, and his eyes sought the 
photograph on the shelf. 

“ Oh, fickle Charles,” he said. 

Charlie coloured a little. 

“Not at all; but I say she is a fine girl, 
Blackett, don’t you think — so breezy and 
natural — and her colour, Black, like roses in the 
wind, and her eyes ! Have you ever noticed her 
eyes ? ” 

“ You are quite eloquent, Charlie.” 

“Oh, I don’t mean anything, of course; 
nothing serious you know, or anything of that 
sort, and besides there’s her parentage and all 
that.” 

Blackett nodded. 

“ Precisely, and the people at home ? ” 

“Yes, and harvest, old man, harvest. And 
did you ever see such crops? ” 

204 


The Book of His Birthright 

They were standing at the doorway, and in the 
last light of sunset the plains lay flooded with 
gold, caught and prisoned by a million heads of 
wheat. 

“ Did you ever see such crops ? Why it means 
England — and — and Ethel perhaps, and a 
balance at the bank. Oh, it’s almost too good 
to be true.” 

Later in the evening he walked back with 
Blackett, until Trevelyan joined them. Then 
he bade them good night and Trevelyan gave 
him a cigar. 

When he had gone Blackett turned to his 
companion. 

“ Well?” 

“ Oh, he took it very calmly and refused to 
come with me, at any rate for the present. I 
don’t think he at all realizes the position — 
talked about harvest, you know, and a matter of 
crops.” 

About ten o’clock Roddy went out into the 
moonlight for a last look at the horses, and on 
his way back from the stables strayed out into 
the wheat. 

The night wind sent it shimmering about his 
knees, silver and opulent, and bending down he 
took an ear or two between his hands. 

“ Pretty nigh ready,” he murmured and lifted 
his head gladly, for the tardy weeks were at last 
205 


The Manitoban 


nearing completion, the weeks that should end 
the disquiet in his heart and lead Hope to his 
arms. 

And so the great fields swayed and sighed, 
swayed to the hot wind and sighed with the 
burden of their fruitage. 

And with the accustomed murmur in his ears 
Roddy fell asleep. 


206 




























































VIII 
















































































































































VIII 


An hour later the door of his shanty was 
flung suddenly open and Charlie, with wild eyes, 
pulled him from his bed. 

His face was black, and his hands charred and 
bleeding. 

“ Good God, Roddy ! Oh, good God ! ” he 
shouted. 

For a minute Roddy stared at him dumbly, 
but the next had pushed him aside and was 
standing in the doorway. 

And before his eyes, eating its way into the 
heart of his ripened wheat, with its apex at the 
trail and an ever broadening base advancing 
towards him, spread a wedge of fire. 

In the calm moonlight the little flames 
snarled and glimmered, peeping over the wheat- 
tops, pallid and unearthly, but fanned by the 
risen wind into a roar that was real enough. 

For a moment or two Roddy looked at the 
sight in silence, then he turned to Charlie. 

“ The wind’s risin’,” he said quietly. “ An’ 
there’s nothin’ can save our wheat or my 
buildin’s. How are yours?” 

“ One fire-guard. Good God ! ” 

209 


14 


The Manitoban 


“ We’ll have time to plough another and then 
get back to the cross trail. That’ll check the 
fire, an’ we may save Johnson’s wheat an’ the 
rest. If it jumps the trail, it’ll burn out the 
settlement.” 

Johnnie had crept out of bed and stood now 
beside them, shivering in his knickers as 
Charlie cursed Trevelyan’s cigar, himself, and 
the flames. Roddy took him by the shoulders. 

“ For God’s sake pull yourself together, man, 
an’ get back to your buildin’s an’ hitch on to a 
plough. You haven’t got all night to think 
about it.” 

He thrust him away and hurried down to the 
stables. 

There he loosened Nellie and called Johnnie. 

“ Get up,” he said, “ an’ ride for all you know 
to Johnson an’ Pete an’ the rest. Tell ’em to 
bring sacks an’ get along Johnson’s trail. See? 
Now get, an’ ride Nellie till you bust her.” 

Johnnie, scared and half naked, scrambled up 
and beat upon the pony’s sides with his bare 
heels as he galloped down the trail. On his 
way he passed Charlie, running with hoarse 
pants towards his own shanty. 

Left alone, Roddy flung the harness on one of 
his teams and hitched them to a plough. The 
other horses, cut loose, huddled through the 
doorway and wandered out into the wheat. 

210 


The Book of His Birthright 

The fire was now within twenty yards of his 
shanty, and to the east had crept already into 
his pasture. 

The shout of it filled his ears, and the air 
was thick with smoke and glowing wisps of 
straw. 

Biting his lips and brushing the water from 
his eyes, he lashed the horses across a corner of 
the next field, the plough bumping about their 
heels as they plunged through the wheat towards 
the trail. 

Torn and bleeding, it was all Roddy could do to 
hold them in control as they clattered at a gallop 
down the trail to Charlie’s shanty. 

This lay half a mile distant, and half a mile 
beyond it again Johnson’s trail, leading out of the 
main track to Carroll, struck transversely across 
the line of fire. 

It was a broad stretch of bare roadway, 
bordered on each side by several yards of close 
cropped prairie grass, and it was here that 
Roddy hoped the flames might be controlled, 
so that at any rate the great fields to the south 
might be saved from destruction. 

On the west the fire was creeping alongside 
the main trail to Carroll, but would scarcely 
spread across it, and eastwards would not take 
the unbroken prairie, with its close grass, at 
such terrible speed. 


The Manitoban 


It was south in the path of the wind that the 
danger lay, and should Johnson’s trail be leaped, 
who could say where the fire would burn itself 
out? 

Charlie was already driving his plough in a 
wider circle round his home and buildings, his 
face dusky and haggard in the moonlight. 

Roddy fell in behind him, and the two, after 
their different manners, worked against flame 
and time, Charlie, with hot curses, lashing his 
horses, Roddy, grim and silent, watching the 
marching fire with stern eyes. And it strode 
now like a giant, the distance melting before it, 
the wheat bowing at its feet. 

For half a mile the front of it blazed and 
crackled, the flames lurid in the smoke, pale in 
the moonlight, rising and falling as the hot wind 
fanned them or forbore. 

At last, with a curse, Charlie loosened his 
horses from the plough and rode down to John- 
son’s trail, where already a little group of men 
had gathered at the call. 

But Roddy, grim and scorched, with the 
lust of battle in his heart, held on for another 
round. 

For there was that in this elemental warfare, 
which was appealing to some instinct deep in 
his being, that held him thus with set teeth and 
clothes wringing with sweat. 

212 


The Book of His Birthright 

Blinded and gasping, he held out to the end of 
his round before cutting the traces and galloping 
reluctantly back to the trail. 

Looking over his shoulder he saw that the 
fire had leaped the guard as though it had been 
paper, and was already licking up the grass 
about the stable door. 

And at the sight of it he laughed — one to the 
enemy ; it was going to be a good fight. 

Farther from the flames the wind beat upon 
his forehead, and he wondered how they would 
hold them at the trail. 

They should be able to beat it out at the 
roadway, but the air was already full of burning 
straws ; and should these get a hold of the fields 
beyond, no power of man could turn calamity 
aside. 

As he anticipated, the fire was not spreading 
much to east and west, and would probably die 
out at the nearest trail on either side ; but, even 
so, there remained this half-mile wall of fire, rac- 
ing down to them on the wings of the wind over 
the richest wheat of memory. 

At the trail he found a dozen men, and already 
they were lining out upon the farther side of the 
open land, drawn and resolute, waiting the fire’s 
approach. 

At their back the great fields still swayed and 
sighed, swayed to the night wind and sighed 
213 


The Manitoban 

with the burden of their fruitage, with the hopes 
of half the settlement in their bending heads of 
wheat. 

In front of them ranged an orgie of destruc- 
tion, with blackness in its wake ; and above their 
heads the grave moon, cold and austere, shone 
down from a sleeping sky. 

Roddy fell into his place, watching with the 
eyes of a boxer for the first sign of his oppon- 
ent’s lead. 

The joy in his heart had already mastered the 
first shock of seeing his wheat destroyed. 

What of yesterday and to-morrow, when to- 
night was such a strife as this ? 

But Johnnie, with tears in his eyes, had crept 
to his side, and whimpered of ashes and ruin. 

Roddy took his arm and set him about. 

“ Look yon,” he said, “ an’ don’t talk.” 

For in the field at their back had fallen a 
parcel of flaming straw, which already was lay- 
ing fingers upon the wheat around it. 

Johnnie sprang upon it with the sack in his 
hands, beating it out breathlessly ; and when his 
task was accomplished, had another and another 
waiting at his hand. 

And now all of them fought for home and 
fortune and all that was best in life, fought and 
sweated the night long on bent knees by the 
trail, beating out the tributaries of fire, or strid- 
214 


The Book of His Birthright 

ing back among the wheat to defeat its messen- 
gers from the sky. 

The dozen had grown to a score, and through 
the long hours they held the fire at bay, fighting 
silently as men fight death. 

U ntil at last, as the night wore slowly away, 
the struggle slackened into conquest and the 
fields behind them, still whispering their 
promise of hope, stood heavy for harvest and 
undestroyed. 

Slowly they gathered on the trail, and with 
the tension loosened faced one another haggard 
and triumphant, nor was ever a victory sweeter 
than theirs. 

Only Roddy and Charlie, looking out over a 
mile of ashes, had tasted the bitterness of defeat. 

But for them the reaction had been bound to 
come, and now in this terrible loveliness of dawn 
their dreams lay black before their eyes, and 
their acres, for a long mile, barren and evil and 
odorous. 

Here and there among the ruins of their crops 
a charred fence-post faced them mockingly, its 
tangled wire catching the light of dawn, shining 
out among the ashes. 

Charlie’s shack, strangely untouched, stood 
out ridiculously among his ruined fields, but 
over Roddy’s there still hung the mantle of 
destruction. 


215 


The Manitoban 


The others came round them now with words 
of clumsy comfort, but Roddy, staring out 
stonily across his farm, saw only two eyes he 
dare not question, two lips he must not kiss. 

Then he turned with an effort and smiled. 

“ I guess it’ll be rare for the land,” he said, 
and they went in to Johnson’s shanty for break- 
fast. 

An hour later Roddy went back to his 
buildings to take count of any salvage there 
might be, and found very little. 

He came slowly back to his neighbour’s 
shanty, and as he did so a sudden wave of pity 
came over him. 

For what indeed could this mean to Charlie, 
this destruction of his last chance ? 

The shanty was very still as he approached, 
and a sudden doubt swept into his mind. 

He came at great strides, kicking through the 
hot ashes, and flung open the door. And as he 
did so, Charlie looked up at him, with parch- 
ment cheeks and dark furrows beneath his 
eyes. 

Roddy had never seen such desolate eyes. 

He was sitting at the table, and under his shirt 
sleeve something gleamed in the sunlight. 

With a swift movement Roddy stretched 
across the table, and snatching it up, held it 
behind his back. Then with his other hand he 
2x6 


The Book of His Birthright 

forced Charlie away from him, looking him in 
the eyes until his gaze fell. 

“ Don’t be a fool,” he said quietly. 

In the evening of the same day Roddy came 
wearily to Trevelyan. 

“ I guess you can take me away now,” he said. 

And so it came about that a week later Roddy 
and Trevelyan drove into Carroll to board the 
day express. As they passed the hotel, 
Charlie tottered out to them with mottled 
cheeks and lips that trembled, and leaning a mo- 
ment upon the wheel of their buggy looked mis- 
erably into Roddy’s eyes. 

“ Oh, you lucky, lucky devil,” he said. “ To 
be leaving this accursed country.” 


217 










Ill 

THE BOOK OF HIS KINGDOM 








I 


A year later the sun was setting over Lesson 
Hill, and already the river valley was filled with 
purple shadows. Lesson Grange, with a wider 
view, still caught the sunlight over twenty miles 
of dale and common and through the great 
armorial window its last rays flooded the 
stairway. The wide hall opened out upon a 
lawn, stretching between cedars, an old lawn 
rich like satin and for the moment splendid 
with gold. 

Along the front of the house stretched a 
terrace, broad and flagged, and from it one could 
see the river flowing solemnly in the valley 
below. 

There was an aroma of tea and roses, and in 
the cool air a lingering scent of hay and pine- 
woods. 

And the result was an indefinable sense of 
England and summer and security, an atmos- 
phere of cloistered prosperity and inviolable 
tradition. 

Far down in the valley gleamed a stretch of 
white roadway. It had been there since the 
221 


The Manitoban 


Roman conquest, and over its wide surface 
wheels moved easily. 

In a soft carriage two passengers were passing 
it even now. 

The old man on the terrace looked down at 
them through his field glasses which he pres- 
ently handed to his companion. 

“ Yes, they are coming,” he said. 

She looked at them critically. 

“Well, he is a big man at any rate,” she 
observed presently. 

“So Trevelyan gave us to understand ” 

“And he looks quite proper. Flannel suit, 
straw hat, plain ribbon. I cannot see his 
face.” 

The old man paced up and down, stopping 
now and then to shade his eyes and mark the 
progress of the carriage. 

Lady Lucy laughed at his restlessness. 

“ Why, uncle, you are getting quite excited.” 

He paused before her. 

“ No, my dear, not excited. A little agitated, 
perhaps. I am glad to have Trevelyan back, 
you see. This year without him has been very 
trying. I am glad he has come back, and I am 
glad, too, that Roderick has come with him. 
Trevelyan is not the man to come with — 
with ” 

“ An impossible? ” 


222 


The Book of His Kingdom 

“Quite so, my dear. I can trust Trevelyan. 
Yes, I am sure I can trust Trevelyan. Eh, 
don’t you think so? ” 

She laughed. 

“ Why, you’re doubting him this very minute,” 
she said. 

He turned about, and 

“ Oh, Lucy,” he said solemnly, “ it is a big 
responsibility, you know.” 

“ The heir?” 

“ So much depends on him, the traditions, the 
work. Will he bear out the traditions? Is he 
the man for the work? It doesn’t greatly 
matter what he does with this bit of land when I 
am gone, but our work, Lucy, what of that? 
Will he be the man to carry out the scheme? 
Is he the man to redeem his fellows, to throw 
his heart into my plans and carry out my 
desires? Oh, so much depends on him, and 
such men are rare, Lucy. Is he a man? Yes, 
I cannot help doubting sometimes whether 
T revelyan has not been carried away by some- 
thing inessential.” Lady Lucy waved a tea- 
spoon. 

“ Sit down, uncle, and have another cup. 
Calm yourself and reflect that at any rate you 
can send him home again.” 

Through the great gates, the carriage swung 
at a round pace, the lodgekeeper touching his 
223 


The Manitoban 

hat respectfully and his children curtseying at 
the roadside. 

Roddy looked at them seriously and bade 
them good day. It oppressed him, this tacit 
recognition of superiority. It was as though he 
were playing a part. 

Through this year of travel he had indeed 
become accustomed to deference, but so far it 
had only been that accorded by habit to travel- 
lers, who pay their way. 

But there was something new and individual 
in this homage, which struck him with a sense 
of discomfort, even of awe. It was as though 
he were being taken by the shoulders and ush- 
ered into his place by some force invisible, old 
as the hills and as unchangeable. 

And in its hands he felt a child. 

And who indeed were these men, that they 
should bow at his approach ? 

They drove horses, he supposed, cleaned 
stables, felled trees, and the like. 

Well, so did he. 

They worked to live, and dwelt in the 
strength of what they earned. 

And such a life was his. 

Why, then, should they touch their hats and 
run at his behest ? 

Ah, they were strange pioblems, these prod- 
ucts of civilization and the East, Birth and 
224 


The Book of His Kingdom 

Class and Breeding and the rest, and it were 
better surely to thrust them from his mind. 

He looked round with a sigh, his eyes 
dwelling upon the great trees and the rich 
colouring of these surrounding pastures. 

The wheels grated pleasantly on the gravel, 
and the park, it would seem, dwelt in a realm 
of eternal siesta, from which the world, more 
strenuous, was in perpetual banishment. 

Well, it had its charms, this unreal, opulent 
English life, and it was a strange accident 
indeed that had called him to share them. 

Beside him in the carriage, Trevelyan sat 
watching him, with half closed eyes. Already, 
in this short year, Roddy had changed wonder- 
fully; and Trevelyan took no little credit for the 
metamorphosis. 

With infinite discretion, he had led him from 
one experience to another, from the rough 
hotels of the Western Rockies, to the various 
society of the steamer to Japan. 

There he had met friends in the legations, 
and with enormous persuasion had succeeded in 
getting Roddy into evening dress. 

Returning through India they had met many 
and various acquaintances, had dined in masses 
and clubs, and attended fetes galore. 

They had dawdled down the Mediterranean 
and spent golden weeks on the Riviera, 
is 22 5 


The Manitoban 


And every month had seen the grave of some 
Western crudity, the disappearance of some 
provincial colloquialism. 

Until now, unwitting of the change, Roddy 
had very naturally moved far towards Trevel- 
yan’s ideal of gentle deportment. And on this 
summer afternoon T revelyan felt that his share of 
the work was finished, and that now the future 
lay in Roddy’s own unconscious keeping. So 
he sucked his cigar with a sense of duty done, 
and wondered idly how the old man would greet 
their return. 

The carriage drew up between the lawn and 
the terrace, and on the broad steps leading up 
to the doorway Sir George stood waiting to 
greet them. He looked very frail and bent, a 
tottering hidalgo in a velvet jacket. 

Roddy could have lifted him in his arms quite 
easily, and yet there was something in the very 
gesture of his welcome that was an unmis- 
takable testimony of power, and to Roddy he 
stood instantly for the very type of knightly 
tradition. 

And so they faced one another, grandfather 
and grandson, children of such different schools, 
knit only by the bond of blood. And they 
looked into each other’s eyes, eyes that were 
very much alike, Roddy’s grave and indomit- 
able, Sir George’s grave and indomitable, but 
226 


The Book of His Kingdom 

with an added gentleness that sprang from older 
years and a tenderer environment. 

Then the old man held out his hand. 

“ I am glad to see you, Roddy.” 

“ I am glad to see you, sir.” 

And this from a boy, who had called his father 
by his Christian name. 

T revelyan smiled to himself. So the centuries 
had conquered, after all, and the old man, 
standing for the great past, had won his homage 
very naturally. 

It was Roddy’s first surrender to the spirit of 
the place, and Trevelyan smiled, wondering if 
Roddy realized the nature of his admission. 

And if Roddy found his grandfather the 
knight of an elder school, and a fit interpreter 
of the manner grand, so the old man’s heart had 
rejoiced suddenly as he set eyes upon this heir 
of his, this boy, blood of his blood, bone of his 
bone. 

With his close brown hair and firm, clean- 
shaven lips and chin, with his cheeks flushed a 
little beneath his rich mahogany skin, and his 
blue steady eyes, he was good to look upon, 
standing here in the pride of his manhood on 
the steps of his inheritance. 

The old man turned his face to the sunset 
that he might look at him more closely; and 
doing so, saw that the eyes of him were those of 
227 


The Manitoban 


a man who had warred with nature and faced 
death, but with the heart of a boy and a spirit 
simple and straightforward. 

They sat down together on the terrace for tea, 
and presently when Trevelyan and Sir George 
had retired to consult on business matters, Lady 
Lucy and Roddy talked long into the twilight. 

Roddy was not shy, but conversation had 
never been his strong point, and often enough 
his gaze wandered out across the valley, over 
this scene so strange to him and new — the great 
undulating park leading down to the river; 
studded with giant trees, the white road grow- 
ing grey in the dusk, the opposite hills with 
their plantations of fir, the tender sky above 
them and its English stars, the crying of birds 
in the gardens, the trim lawn and flower beds 
at their feet. 

It was such a picture as dwells in memory 
and is at once the strength and weakness of 
Englishmen abroad. Lady Lucy watched his 
evident enjoyment with a smile. It was true, 
no doubt, that he ought rather to have been 
entertaining her, but she was content to watch 
him — this experiment of her uncle’s — and she 
saw that at present at any rate there was no 
light of ownership in his eyes. 

“It is very lovely, don’t you think?” she 
asked presently. 


228 


The Book of His Kingdom 

He looked at her again. 

“Yes, I — I beg your pardon, you know. I’m 
rather a poor companion, but I have never seen 
anything like this, and it seems to fill one’s 
mind.” 

“ The prairie must be very different.” 

Roddy nodded. 

“ I guess it’s only my fancy, but all this seems 
to me to have been built up step by step, through 
hundreds and hundreds of years, to be old and 
rich and mature, while the prairie seems to have 
been struck out once for ever when the world was 
made, and to have remained everlastingly young. 
Am I talking nonsense, do you suppose?” 

She shook her head. 

“ Well, it seems to me that here you have 
conquered nature, and out there nature is still 
on top, with her storms and fires and frost. 
And she’s always letting us know it.” 

Lady Lucy smiled. 

“ I think perhaps you are right,” she said. 
“We are getting rather far away from nature 
here.” 

She rose and took up her books. 

“ I am going in now to write some letters 
before we dress for dinner. Would you like to 
stroll through the gardens for a little? ” 

And Roddy held open the French door as 
she passed through. 


229 


The Manitoban 


In the corridor she met Trevelyan. 

“Well, Lady Lucy?” 

“ He is a nice boy, Cyril, but there is some- 
thing in his eyes that frightens me a little. He 
has got terrible eyes, don’t you think?” 

Trevelyan laughed. 

“ Wait till you know him better,” he said. 

Roddy walked slowly through the gardens, 
smoking his pipe. Vistas of rose bushes 
tempted him on every side, and once a peacock 
strutted across his path between hedges of yew. 
Strange fragrant flowers nodded tremulously in 
the dusk, and a gardener’s boy, upon whom he 
came suddenly, looked at him furtively and 
touched his cap. Life seemed to be closing 
about him, with magic bonds, to be enticing 
him he knew not whither. And was this indeed 
his home, his heritage? He could not imagine 
himself spending his days here, but for the 
moment it was not unpleasant as a dream. 
From these quiet gardens how infinitely distant 
seemed Carroll and the prairie and the little 
farm, and which indeed were the ghosts, they 
or these, since surely both could not be real ? 

At a keeper’s cottage he was suddenly met by 
three little girls. 

He looked down absently into their clear eyes, 
and they smiled up at him shyly with rosy 
cheeks, holding out bunches of flowers. 

230 


The Book of His Kingdom 

“ Are these for me ? ” 

They nodded, looking at one another, 
laughing. 

He took the little bunch in his big hands. 

“Why, this is very good of you,” he said, 
smiling down at them. And then one of them 
stammered out a little speech. 

“ Us be so glad you’ve come,” they said. 

He stooped suddenly and kissed their cheeks, 
and they fled blushing and laughing into the 
little cottage. 

Late in the evening Sir George took Roddy 
round the big hall. 

They were the last up and the old man 
carried a candle. 

He held it above his head. And once its light 
fell on a shirt of mail surrounded by a helmet, 
and, “ A Laville wore those at Agincourt,” he 
said. 

They crossed the hall. Above the mantel- 
piece hung a sword. 

“And this was carried at Waterloo.” 

Then he smiled up into Roddy’s face. 

“We have always been a family of fighters, 
you see.” 

“And you?” asked Roddy gravely. 

“ As well. Different foes perhaps, and 
fought with other weapons. You will see 
them soon.” 


231 


The Manitoban 


On their way upstairs the light flickered upon 
a coat of arms and Roddy paused before it. 

“Your crest, I guess.” 

But the old man laid his hand suddenly upon 
Roddy’s shoulder. 

“ Our crest,” he corrected gently, and even 
Roddy’s republican heart stirred at being one 
with these old warriors. 

At his bedroom door they shook hands. 
“ Good night, Roddy,” said the old man. “ I 
am glad you have come. I think we shall be 
friends.” 


232 







II 


Riding home from the summer fallow Young 
Luke communed with himself. His father had 
taken up another quarter section and Young 
Luke was to work it. It already contained a 
shanty, and as it was situated some four miles 
away it appeared probable that he would have 
to reside there. And to reside there meant a 
great deal more loneliness than Young Luke 
was either accustomed to or desirous of endur- 
ing. 

And as a consequence, since the land had to 
be worked, his thoughts of late had turned to 
matrimony, and turning to matrimony by a 
perverse freak of circumstance had been some- 
what largely filled by Hope. 

It was the most perplexing problem that had 
faced him, and in his heart he had argued the 
matter a number of times. 

His conscience opposed his desire. 

“You like her,” suggested the tempter, 
jibbing tactfully at a more forcible expression. 

“ She is unsaved,” said conscience. 

“ She hasn’t a dollar,” added prudence. 

235 


The Manitoban 


“She is beautiful,” pursued the tempter. 

“ Her birth,” reproached conscience. 

“ People would talk,” submitted prudence. 

“ She is young and strong and healthy. She 
would be a good mother,” said the tempter. 

“She is unsympathetic; she is almost a 
heathen,” said conscience. 

“Liza Judd teaches Sunday school and her 
father is well off,” suggested prudence a little 
irrelevantly. Was ever a man so harassed, 
pondered Young Luke, and met his mother 
pursuing an errant cow. 

“Where is Hope?” he asked, dallying still 
with the tempter. 

“ Ridden off for the mail,” said his mother 
and continued her errand. 

Young Luke stabled his team thoughtfully 
and presently strolled out upon the trail to the 
post-office. 

The prairie lay about him like a dream and 
temptation stepped softly in the dusk. 

As Hope neared the little Icelandic post- 
office she met Blackett driving out and he pulled 
up to greet her. 

“ You’re looking very well, Miss Hope.” 

“ Thanks, I’m quite well.” 

“ Work going hard ? ” 

“ Not harder than usual.” 

Then she looked at him half shyly. 

236 


The Book of His Kingdom 

“ I say, Mr. Blackett, have you heard anythin’ 
of my cousin? ” 

The phrase sounded odd in Blackett’s ears 
and he looked at her for a moment with puzzled 
eyes. 

“ Cousin ? ” he repeated. 

“ Roddy Laville.” 

“ Oh, I beg your pardon. I had forgotten.” 

And he stared at her curiously, wondering 
why she had emphasized the relationship. 

He knew the Lukes’ present attitude to 
Roddy. Was Hope also desirous of sharing 
this second-hand notoriety? Then he aban- 
doned the idea. 

“ Why, no,” he said. “ I fancy he never 
writes letters, does he?” 

Hope shook her head. 

“ I don’t know.” 

Then Blackett leaned forward a little. 

“ He will come back, you know,” he said. 

“ I don’t think so,” said Hope. 

For in her mind Roddy wore a coronet, now, 
and a robe, and moved among rich men, with 
lands, and queenly girls with soft hands and 
proud voices. He would never come back. 

“ He will never come back,” she said, but 
Blackett smiled. 

“He will soon find out that England is not 
the place for him.” 


237 


The Manitoban 


Hope touched the bronco. 

“ Good-bye,” she said, and rode on to fetch 
the letters. 

In the shadow of the bluff, Young Luke bit a 
wisp of grass and listened for hoofs on the trail. 
When they were close he stepped out and stood 
across the path. 

“ Hullo, Hope,” he said clumsily and laid a 
hand upon the bridle. He stared up into her 
face. 

Her eyes shone in the twilight and her cheeks 
were flushed. 

“ Hullo, Hope. Enjoyed your ride? ” 

“Yes, thanks.” 

“You look well on horseback; always did.” 

She was silent, looking beyond him, impa- 
tiently, to the house. 

The blue smoke rose lazily from the smudge 
in the old corral. 

Conscience grew weak and made no protest. 

“ But she is nobody,” muttered prudence. 

“ Look at her,” said the tempter, trium- 
phantly. 

“I’m goin’ to live on the new farm next 
month.” 

“ Are you? ” 

Hope felt relieved. 

“ I guess — I guess it’ll be lonely there.” 

“ It’s not very far away.” 

238 


The Book of His Kingdom 

“I’ll miss somethin’. Can you guess what 
I’ll miss?” 

“ No.” 

“Can’t guess? Well, well, perhaps you 
wouldn’t. I’ll miss you.” 

“Miss me?” Hope’s cheeks flamed. “Miss 
me ? What do you mean ? ” 

“ I guess I love you, Hope. I guess I want to 
marry you.” 

“ Will you let go the bridle, please? ” 

“ I’m offerin’ you a good home.” 

“ I don’t want ever to see you again. I told 
you I hated you. Why do you ask me ? ” 

“ Hate me ? Hate me ? That’s plain words.” 

“ It’s what I mean. Why don’t you marry 
Liza Judd or Loo Corrie, or some o’ them? ” 

“ I guess you’re a heap prettier than them, 
Hope,” and coming closer he laid his fingers 
upon her arm. She could feel his breath upon 
her hand. 

Then she struck him with her whip twice 
across the cheek, and the red weals leapt out 
upon it. 

He sprang back, but she held up the bronco 
for a moment. 

“ Oh, I hate you, I hate you,” she said. 
“An’ if they ask you at Sunday school who 
whipped you, you can tell them, on’y you daren’t, 
you daren’t.” 


239 


The Manitoban 


When he looked at her across the supper 
table she stared at his cheek and sat steadily in 
her chair, but long after, late in the night, she 
bit the pillow between her teeth lest old man 
Luke, through the flimsy wall, should wake and 
hear her sobbing. 


240 








Ill 


“ So you see it has become my life work,” said 
Sir George. 

Roddy nodded and proceeded with his 
luncheon. 

The great windows lay open to a noon of 
sunlight, but the autumn air was crisp. 

Roddy was in his riding clothes, ruddy from 
exercise. 

“ And the work has grown beyond my hopes 
and will grow more. It is only a step just now, 
but it is a step on the right way, on the road to 
redemption.” 

The old man laid down his newspaper and 
looked seriously at his grandson, looked serious- 
ly with the eyes of a dreamer. 

“You must spend some time in town soon, 
Roddy, and look into it,” he said. 

“ I should like to,” said Roddy, applying 
himself to the pie before him. 

“You have been riding?” 

“ Since breakfast.” 

“ You are getting used to our English life.” 

“ Why, yes, I suppose I must be.” 

243 


The Manitoban 


“And you like it?” 

“ It’s great.” Roddy stretched himself luxur- 
iously and looked across the table. 

“ It’s great, sir, only it still seems like a — a 
sort of a dream, you know.” 

Sir George smiled. “You’ll outlive that,” he 
said. “ And after all, dreams have their place in 
life, but I want you to see London, Roddy, and 
the Institute.” 

Roddy rose leisurely and lit his pipe. 

“ I’ll go to-day,” he said. 

But Sir George shook his head. 

“ The country is too good just now,” he 
smiled. “ Take your time and enjoy yourself in 
your own way.” 

Then Roddy came round to him and looked 
down into his eyes. 

“You are very good to me,” he said. “And 
just now I don’t seem quite to have got the 
hang of things. Some day I guess I’ll wake 
up.” 

Some day? 

Sir George looked at him. Some day this 
young giant would be master here. 

Some day the men and women of to-morrow 
would watch him with observant eyes, would 
look upon his wealth and his work. Some day 
he would be in his country’s councils. Some 
day he would stand, please God, at the helm of 
244 


The Book of His Kingdom 

enterprise and reform, would bear the burdens 
of the future on those big shoulders of his. Ah 
some day, some day. 

But he was silent, for the days were not yet 
ripe for calling Roddy to his life work. So he 
rounded his thoughts lightly and, “ Some day 
you will be the lord of this little manor,” he 
said, “and you will marry and ” 

“ Marry?” 

Roddy stared at him slowly. 

Marry ? 

The words fell strangely upon his thoughts, 
for whom indeed could he ever marry but Hope, 
and what part had she in this strange life he was 
leading? 

Marry ? 

Sir George smiled at the trouble, sprung sud- 
denly into his eyes. 

“ Surely not a very great hardship,” he sug- 
gested. 

But Roddy was silent, trying to piece Hope 
into this dreamland about him, trying with the 
foreknowledge of failure already in his heart. 

For he knew it could never be and loved her 
the better for it. 

And now, though she had never been far from 
his thoughts, she came back to him from that 
new world that was the old, came back with 
appealing arms. And it dawned upon his mind 
245 


The Manitoban 


for the first time that there was coming upon 
him a day of decision, and what manner of 
choice was it that lay before him ? 

And then he remembered that he could not 
even guess whether she loved him and he 
laughed, but took his way thoughtfully across 
the gardens. 

In these few weeks he had become recognized 
throughout the country as the proper heir to 
Lesson and the grandson of Sir George’s 
fondest hopes. 

A succession of festivities had served to 
emphasize this feeling, and the manner in which 
Roddy had yielded to social obligations had 
crowned the belief with assurance. 

To Roddy himself these days had passed 
like a dream, like a pageant, of which he 
was but a lay figure, albeit by stress of circum- 
stance a prominent one. 

He had talked to men and women who had 
accepted him as one of themselves, a good 
fellow, if a silent, and now on this autumn 
afternoon found himself at last on a river bank 
that was practically his own domain. 

It was all very strange, and in the rush of 
these long weeks it almost seemed as though his 
life had known no other side. 

He unlocked the boat-house, and dropping 
into one of the boats, paddled leisurely out into 
246 


The Book of His Kingdom 

the stream where he drifted down into the 
shadow of the opposite woods. 

Looking up through the tree trunks darkening 
into distance, he felt tempted to find his way 
amongst them; and were they not potentially 
his? 

Fastening the boat to a bending willow he 
turned into a pathway, flecked with sunlight, 
but leading into dim recesses. 

These dreaming English woods were wonder- 
fully pleasant, full of a sweet illusion and well in 
harmony with his present mood. Occasional 
bright eyes peeped at him from stem and brake, 
but they were not human and no footsteps 
but his own fell upon the pathway. He walked 
slowly and for some distance, wondering if 
anything could make life real in this atmos- 
phere of dreams until at last a familiar sound 
struck his ears. He paused a moment to gather 
its direction, and then held out towards it. And 
presently as he approached a clearing he saw 
some men at work with axe and saw, and when 
he came up to them they touched their caps. 

It was obvious that they knew who he was, 
and for a while he stood looking at their work. 

Then he bent down and picked up an axe, 
running his fingers down the shaft. It was of 
an unaccustomed shape, but as his hands 
tightened upon it memory and a sudden desire 
247 


The Manitoban 

for labour came upon him. The men watched 
him curiously as he slowly laid aside his coat. 

As he rolled up his sleeves he felt half 
ashamed, for in these past months his arms had 
grown strangely white. Then he swung the axe 
and the blade bit deep into a standing tree- 
trunk. Swinging easily, only the great chips 
flying out and the clean deepening cut, told of 
the power with which he struck. In a minute 
or two, shifting his grip upon the shaft, he cut 
left-handedly, without leaving his tracks, a trick 
caught from the Canadian lumbermen, which 
brought a quick admiration into the eyes of 
these English foresters. Presently the great 
tree cracked and groaned, and with a stroke or 
two tottered and fell, its butt riding easily over 
the stump, tapered to a clean edge, with white 
sides that might have been cut by a plane. 

The men crowded round him with an honest 
praise that was sweeter to Roddy than a 
thousand tributes to his accident of birth. 

The sweat stood upon his forehead, his 
muscles had grown tense and satisfied, and his 
face was glad. But at the new light in his eyes 
the men about him were puzzled. 

And indeed how could they tell that this 
brown-cheeked giant had suddenly awakened 
from sleep, in a strange land, come suddenly to 
himself, a dreamer roused at the call of life ? 

248 


The Book of His Kingdom 

Y et this was the case and Roddy strode down 
among the trees, filled with a world of self- 
reproach. 

For he had been all too far on the road to 
forgetfulness, and to his simple creed the ring 
of an axe had come as the call of God. 

And what had he been about to do — to join 
the ranks of leisure, to forsake the old fierce 
joys for some new and soft existence? He was 
not sure of himself. 

Why had he let himself drift thus dangerously 
away from life, from the real bitter peaceful life 
that had once been his and must assuredly be so 
again ? 

Already he had begun to see that a choice 
must come. It had seemed to be a choice 
between this new life on the one hand with its 
ease and homage, and Hope upon the other. 

And now it was clear that the choice was a 
wider one than this. It was a decision be- 
tween the new and the old, between labour 
and luxury, between the simplicity of the prairie 
and its problems, and all the complex machin- 
ery of this strange English life that had rolled 
in the channels of the centuries. 

And it was too clear that every week was 
building its barriers about him, and that he 
must choose speedily and look to it lest he 
should do anyone a wrong. And with these 
249 


The Manitoban 


thoughts came the picture of his land in ashes, 
rented now to Blackett, but awaiting his return 
next year. 

He contrasted it with these fair woods, the 
broad river and the great house yonder in the 
sunlight. It was going to be a hard choice, 
whose day was coming so speedily upon him. 

He was going at great strides now down the 
pathway, keeping pace with his thoughts, and 
would have overpassed his boat had he not 
suddenly encountered a new face upon his 
way. 

He pulled up abruptly, and stared for the 
moment into a pair of brown eyes. 

Something in them seemed familiar, and they 
too would seem to remember. 

And he half raised his hat. She smiled. 

“We have been introduced, you know,” she 
said. He bowed. 

“ But I know you have forgotten me.” 

“ Only your name. I know your face quite 
well.” 

“ We met at Lady Murray’s garden party. I 
am Ethel Moore.” 

“ And yet I know you better than that, though 
I can’t think how.” 

She shook her head and laughed. 

“ It’s impossible. And — I have never been in 
Canada.” 


250 


The Book of His Kingdom 

Canada — that was the link, but how had it 
been forged? 

Roddy could not remember, and groping in 
his mind, continued to talk to her. 

“ That is your misfortune,” he said. “ It’s the 
finest country in the world. I was thinking so 
right now, when I nearly collided with you.” 

She laughed. 

“You looked as if you were bound there by 
the next boat.” 

Roddy looked at her seriously. 

“ Well, I don’t know if that’s far wrong,” he 
said. 

She looked puzzled. 

“ But you have only just come back.” 

“ I have been away a year.” 

“ That isn’t very long.” 

“ Long enough to spoil a man.” 

“You are a Manitoban? ” 

“ Yes.” 

They were standing by the willow tree and 
she looked down at the boat. 

“You are wanting to cross? ” divined Roddy. 

“ Oh, thank you, yes. I live over there.” In 
the shadow of the little church was an old house, 
covered with creepers, surrounded by a small 
garden, neatly railed about. 

“ At the rectory? ” 

She nodded. 

251 


The Manitoban 


“ Since four years ago. We used to live next 
door till father died. I am a governess.” She 
spoke a little defiantly and Roddy began to like 
her. She seemed easy and natural, and her 
gentle birth was obvious. With his mind full of 
Hope he could not help contrasting the two, 
this English girl with her delicate colouring, 
her self-possession and refinement, and Hope, 
the child of nature, with her untamed grace 
and this strange phenomenon of birth that could 
make him the friend of both. 

The autumn evening was growing chilly, and 
as the boat’s nose ran in among the reeds, his 
companion shivered a little. 

“You are cold I guess,” said Roddy. “You 
must hurry home.” 

But she stood for a moment undecided. 

“ I suppose — I suppose you cannot know a 
Mr. West,” she said, looking at him seriously. 

“West — Charlie West? Why, yes, of course 
I do.” 

And in a moment Roddy found what he had 
wanted. Here was the reality of a picture he 
had often seen in the little shanty next his own. 

“ Why, yes,” he said again. “ I know him 
very well.” 

“ Then, Mr. Laville, would you care — would 
you mind coming with me to the rectory? His 
father and mother live there. They would be 
252 


The Book of His Kingdom 

so glad. It would comfort them. They miss 
him so much. It would be the next best thing 
to seeing him, if they could talk to you, who 
have seen him so recently.” 

Her brown eyes were looking him honestly in 
the face, and as she pleaded the colour in her 
cheeks had heightened. 

Roddy hesitated a moment ; then he guided 
the boat back into its house and locked the 
door. 

“ I should like to come,” he said. 

When they got back to the house the curtains 
were drawn, and in the little drawing room a fire 
was glowing in the grate and a lamp burned 
softly upon one of the tables. 

And as they entered, two white-haired persons 
rose to greet him, looking at him with some 
surprise, but coming forward with gentle 
courtesy to shake his hand. 

“ Of course you are known to us by sight, 
Mr. Laville,” said the rector, “ although you are 
not one of our parishioners. It is good of you 
to have come to see us.” 

“ Mr. Laville has come to tell you about 
Charlie,” said Ethel, and Roddy could not but 
smile, despite himself, at the sudden change in 
their demeanour towards him. 

“ About Charlie? ” 

The faces, looking anxiously into his, had 
253 


The Manitoban 


been worn and tired, but now they were illu- 
mined like those of watchers, whose vigil has 
not been vain. 

They both spoke at once with eager lips, 
coming close to him ; and at the light in their 
eyes Roddy suddenly wished himself worlds 
away, for it was abundantly evident that their 
Canadian exile was the light and hope of this 
little Berkshire home. 

“ About Charlie ? ” 

Oh, he must sit down and tell them all he 
knew, draw his chair up to the fire, and Ethel 
would bring him some tea. 

“About Charlie?” 

How could they thank him enough for coming 
down to tell them of their boy? 

And first, was he well, was he happy? 

For a minute or two Roddy stared at them in 
silence, collecting his thoughts, and realizing 
suddenly that the whole happiness of this little 
home had been thrust into his keeping to seal 
or shatter. 

Then the little drawing room, decked with 
trinkets, faded from his view and he saw only a 
shanty, charred and destitute, saw two despairing 
eyes and a figure debauched and miserable reel- 
ing down a western street. 

And going back across the months, saw this 
same son of theirs, irresponsible, debonnair, with 

254 


The Book of His Kingdom 

Hope upon his arm. He came back to the 
present with an effort, knowing that three 
people hung upon his words ; and for the first 
time in his life felt that there were eyes upon 
him that he dared not face. 

“Yes, his health seemed all right.” 

“ And he was happy? ” 

Roddy was silent. What had he told them 
of his life, this son of their love? 

“ Life is a bit hard out there sometimes.” 

“Oh, yes, we know. We wonder he has 
stood it so well, and he is doing so splendidly.” 

Roddy stared into the fire. He preferred to 
be told about Charlie, to hear of him from these 
his worshippers. 

“ And only last year he had the best crop that 
he had ever had.” They could not quite keep 
the pride from their voices, and looked at him 
with shining eyes. 

“ The wheat promised well,” said Roddy. 

“ And the papers said it had been a record 
year.” 

“ Yes, it was a record year.” 

“And prices had been good.” 

“ They were certainly better.” 

“ He was not overworking, you think?” 

“No, I think not.” 

They looked at one another gladly. 

“ Ah, that is reassuring. He has not written 
255 


The Manitoban 

much this year, and we have thought it a sign 
of his prosperity, of increasing duties, you 
know.” 

They beamed. 

“No news is good news.” 

Roddy moved uneasily in his chair and shifted 
his gaze from the fire to the table. Upon it 
stood a photo of Charlie. 

He looked back into the fire. 

“Yes,” he muttered. “You are quite right. 
It’s often good news.” 

“You see,” began the old man. He looked 
inquiringly at his wife and F she smiled back 
and nodded. “You see, Mr. Laville, we were 
so glad to be able to help him to buy all that 
new land and good machinery. We could not 
have done any more for him, and it is indeed 
a comfort to hear of his success — indeed a 
comfort.” 

He closed his eyes a moment, and Roddy, 
looking at him quickly, wondered if he were 
thanking God. 

“ A little capital maybe a great help,” he said. 

“ You cannot think how we are longing to see 
him again. Dear boy, it was always his wish to 
go abroad and he has been so good and steady.” 

“ You must have missed him.” 

“ Oh, we have. Nobody knows how much.” 

“ He will be glad to see you again.” 

256 


The Book of His Kingdom 

“ And you think he may soon return, be able 
to leave a manager over his affairs for a little 
while, and come back for a real holiday?” 

“Some day, perhaps, if not just yet. It is 
hard to get away, you know.” 

“ Of course we have no idea of the life out 
there.” 

“ Perhaps it is as well.” 

They smiled at him. 

“Yes, we have often thought that. It might 
make us more anxious about Charlie’s success.” 

“Yes.” 

Roddy rose suddenly. 

“ I am sorry. I must be going,” he said. “ I 
— I am glad to have seen you.” 

They pressed about him gratefully. 

“Oh, Mr. Laville, how shall we thank you? 
We shall never forget your visit, and the way 
you have cheered us, and your great kindness, 
and all your ” 

“ Don’t thank me,” said Roddy, and looked 
over their heads. “ Don’t thank me. Good 
night.” 

“ Good night. Good night. God bless you.” 

But Ethel brought him to the gate and 
lingered there a moment. 

“ Mr. Laville?” 

“Yes.” 

“ Did you — know him well ? ” 

17 257 


The Manitoban 


“ Yes.” 

“ Then I think — I think you haven’t told 
them very much.” 

Roddy looked at her dumbly, and in her eyes 
and rising colour saw that he had surprised a 
secret. And who was he to be thus trampling 
these sacred places of another man’s history? 

“ I think you have been hiding something.” 

Roddy took her hand. 

“ I am beginning to be sorry I met you,” he 
said, and saw tears in her eyes. But they were 
brave eyes and looked at him fearlessly. 

“You won’t tell me? ” 

“We have a saying in Manitoba, that when 
an Englishman loses all his money he begins to 
do well.” 

“ He has been unfortunate ? ” 

Roddy looked back at the little house, with its 
glowing windows, and tender garden. Then 
his eyes came back to those before him. 

“ But I think he will prosper,” he said. 









I 




































t 








IV 


Midway between the East End’s widest 
thoroughfare and the London docks, in a road 
that leads sinuously to the river, many-windowed, 
well lit and luxurious, stood the Laville Insti- 
tute. 

Its turreted roof soared commandingly above 
the huddled tenements, its searchlight blazed 
over the pitiful streets with a clear and pene- 
trating beam, complacent and judicial and 
compassionate. 

Open day and night, its broad steps led into 
a hall that would have done credit to a Mayfair 
club. 

Conducted on ecclesiastical principles, it stood 
for the redemption of the masses, morally, 
socially, artistically, and physically. 

Its library was large and select; its classes 
included instruction in mathematics, wood 
carving, chemistry, and gymnastics ; its billiard 
tables were excellent, and though cards were 
forbidden, yet bagatelle, draughts, and chess 
might be played at any time between the hours 
of ten and ten. 

261 


The Manitoban 


Curates from neighbouring churches afforded 
opportunities for religious and moral elevation, 
and ladies from the West End brought fruit and 
flowers and held classes for poker work and 
etching. 

Sir George had provided the necessary capital, 
had been well backed by the philanthropic 
section of society, and was ably assisted by 
Trevelyan, to whom indeed the conception and 
perfection of the institute were largely due. 

And if the East End rolled by on its 
iniquitous way untouched, brushing the lions at 
the gateway with sordid elbows and refusing to 
be escorted to higher things, it was not for want 
of the willing help of the better classes or the 
unstinted efforts of the established clergy. 

Nevertheless Trevelyan sat in his private 
room, with his tea untasted, staring moodily 
into the fire, as he had done for an hour past. 

Presently the door opened and Lady Lucy 
came in. She crossed to the fireplace and stood 
looking down at him. 

They were old friends, these two, and kept no 
secrets. 

“ Dreaming, Cyril ? ” 

“ Thinking, worrying a bit. I am afraid, even 
desponding.” 

“And why?” 

“ Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know. Things 
262 


The Book of His Kingdom 

are no worse to-day than they have been ever 
since, since the first flush died away, you know.” 

She tapped her foot upon the fender. 

“ Six men listening to the Reverend Lucien, 
five in the library, two in the billiard room, and 
a few boys here and there ? ” she asked. 

He nodded. 

“And the men, Lucy, the splendid animals, 
with their passions and possibilities, outside and 
unredeemed; for whom do we reach but the 
merest fringe of characterless parasites, who 
have been through the hands of a dozen such 
places as this? ” 

“ Ah, but you are feeling tired to-night, and 
all such work must grow slowly. They will 
come in time to believe in you, the men you 
want.” 

“In time — in time? And how much time 
have we, Sir George and I ? ” 

Then Roddy came in and seated himself with 
a sigh. 

They both looked towards him, and Lady 
Lucy smiled. 

“Why, surely you are not depressed?” she 
asked. 

Roddy laughed. 

“ Not exactly,” he said. “ But this London 
of yours is pretty appalling. I had no idea there 
were such places in the world as some I have 
263 


The Manitoban 

seen this afternoon, or such people, God help 
them.” 

“ You think so? ” 

Trevelyan was looking at him eagerly, the 
languor vanished from his face, and the old 
enthusiasm came back in his eyes. 

“You had never dreamed there were such 
people, such places?” 

“ Never.” 

“ And what do you think of a work that is 
meant to lift them up, re-create them, make 
them men ? ” 

Roddy looked at him gravely. 

“ I should say it was the best work on earth 
almost.” 

“Then listen,” said Trevelyan. “There was 
a man to whom fortune was kind, whose invest- 
ments prospered, and who acquired great 
wealth. And one day he took the trouble to 
inquire into the way of life of those who were 
toiling to build up his estate. And he spent a 
long time in learning many lessons and made a 
resolve, which at last became the ruling idea of 
his life.” 

“Well?” asked Roddy. 

“ And this is the result. This is Sir 
George’s fight to redeem these toilers, and 
these are his weapons. He has wanted you 
to see them.” 


264 


The Book of His Kingdom 

“ And you succeed ? ” 

Trevelyan was on his feet now and talking 
eagerly. 

“Succeed? Why, not yet, but we mean to, 
we are going to, in the days to come.” 

Roddy nodded. 

“ That’s good, splendid.” 

“ But Roddy ” 

“Yes?” 

“ There is one thing needful.” 

“ Well?” 

“We must have a man to take the helm, to be 
the leader of the future, a man who is young 
and strong and hopeful, whom other men will 
trust.” 

Roddy was silent, looking from one to the 
other. 

“ Well ? ” he asked again. 

Then Trevelyan put both hands upon his 
shoulders, looking him in the face. 

“ Thou art the man,” he said. 

He was looking at him with triumphant eyes. 
Step by step for a long year he had prepared 
the way for this minute and stood now, con- 
fessed, with the certainty of attainment written 
in his face. 

And Roddy was conscious that Lady Lucy 
was regarding him curiously from her position 
by the mantelpiece. 


265 


The Manitoban 


He could hear the clock ticking and a waggon 
rumbling in the road outside. He looked long 
into Trevelyan’s eyes, long enough to see the 
presage of defeat creep into them. 

Then he disengaged himself from the hands 
upon his shoulders and picked up his hat. 

“ I am sorry,” he said. 

And outside in the crowded streets he knew 
that the moment of his choice had come. 

So this was the work, the scheme, the ideal of 
these two men, and for this he had been sought 
out, and upon him they had built their hopes. 

He looked at the men and women about him, 
above whom he stood shoulder high ; and what 
faces they were, hurrying joylessly down these 
grim thoroughfares ! 

This was the other side of his land of dreams. 
These were the rabble in the wake of the 
pageant, and for their betterance Sir George 
and Trevelyan spent money and labour and 
prayer. Well, it was a good work, and now 
they were calling upon him to share it. 

It was a good work, the sort of work God 
must love, and yet it found him strangely unen- 
thusiastic. 

Losing thought of direction, he traversed 
street after street, some flaunting their poverty 
frankly in his face, the majority silent and 
sordid. 


266 


The Book of His Kingdom 

There seemed no end to them ; but he set his 
teeth and resolved to outstrip them. 

And at last he struck out into a green 
expanse, leading upwards and away from town. 
The grass was pleasant to his feet, even in the 
dark, and he was glad to be climbing. And 
presently at the summit of the hill he paused. 
He seemed to have come a long way north, and 
beyond him lay only a dim outline of hills and 
trees. 

At his feet, London, half in mist, lay gleaming 
like a city of stars, but he had threaded its midst 
and knew that the jewelry was false. 

The wind was blowing a gale from the west, 
out of a clear sky, and he stood poised against 
it, filling his lungs with its strength. 

And so for awhile he waited, London with its 
problems at his feet; but the West, at his right 
hand, with a call that would not be denied. 

Y et it was hard in these strange ways to tell 
the right one certainly. 

And though in his mind the issue of his choice 
had never been really in doubt, it became now 
solemn and irrevocable. 

He turned thoughtfully down the hill. Then 
a pair of lovers, talking softly, met him on the 
path. In a friendly human way they seemed to 
say “ yes ” to his decision, and as he passed them 
he grew suddenly light of heart. 

267 


The Manitoban 


Later in the evening he met Trevelyan in the 
great drawing-room of Sir George’s London 
house. The room was crowded, filled with the 
gleam of silk and shirtfront and the murmur of 
conversation. 

Roddy had sought him ever since he returned, 
haunted by his disappointed eyes. He was very 
repentant now and wished to make amends. 

Trevelyan came to meet him and side by side 
the two made their way towards the balcony. 

Although it was winter, the day had been 
warm and the window was standing ajar. And 
as they passed through the room, Roddy with 
his big shoulders and the ploughman’s gait 
that could never be quite disguised, became the 
centre of many eyes, and Trevelyan could read 
admiration in most of them. 

For by contrast to the paler faces about him 
he would seem to be a very child of the sun, and 
through the languorous drawing-room his stride 
came as a breath of the open plains. 

There seemed to be a whisper abroad, and in 
Trevelyan’s ear. 

“ Lo, this is a man,” it said. 

And he felt suddenly that he could not let 
him go, this heir of the Lavilles, who might 
stand for so much in the future of his country 
and its capital. And leaning on the balcony, 

“ Hark,” he said. 


268 


The Book of H is Kingdom 

Roddy listened. 

“ It’s only the roar of London,” he mur- 
mured. But Trevelyan looked at him with 
bright eyes. 

“ No, it is more than that,” he said. “ It is 
the pulse of the world’s heart. It is full of the 
drums of battle. It is a challenge to us men, to 
you and me, to go out and join in the strife. 
You will not turn back?” 

But Roddy faced him slowly, and laying his 
hand upon Trevelyan’s shoulder, — 

“ See here,” he said, “ you and I are different, 
different from the very root of matters, and your 
life is not for me. 

“To you, this London of yours, with its civili- 
zation and culture, is the centre of things. This 
is where you find it best worth while to live. 
But to me the plains are all I want, and I must 
get back to them.” 

“ But the work, Roddy, and the responsi- 
bility. Have you never thought of the respon- 
sibility? ” 

“ The dead must bury their dead.” 

“ The dead?” 

“You see what I mean. You here are the 
top of the tree of your civilization ; those folk 
down there are its dregs, but you are both its 
products. 

“ And it’s your duty to make things right if you 
269 


The Manitoban 


can. But I belong out there. It’s your business 
to set right, but it’s mine to start right. 

“ It’s your business to reform, but it’s mine to 
build. 

“ I’m sorry. I have been dreaming about here 
too long. I ought to have got back months ago. 
I guess perhaps I ought never to have come, 
except maybe that it may help me to build. 

“No, you can’t persuade me; our ways are 
bound to be different, you see. God made them 
so, I guess, and I must get back to mine.” 

“ But as heir of the Lavilles? ” 

Roddy smiled. 

“ Wasn’t there once a Laville who set sail 
from Normandy to fight his way in a new 
country ? ” 

Trevelyan was silent. Then after a long time 
he held out his hand. 

“ I suppose you are right, Roddy,” he said, “ I 
suppose you are right.” 

The same evening he wrote a long letter to 
Sir George, who read it and tore it slowly to 
fragments, staring out of the window across the 
park, clouded to-day and barren of leaves. 

He was growing old and tired and the burden 
of work lay heavily on his shoulders. And he 
had built very much upon this heir of his, come 
out of the West, this giant grandson sent to him 
in the twilight of life. 

270 


The Book of His Kingdom 

The boy had seemed fit for the work, 
splendidly fit, and he had been more than 
content. And indeed the other side of the 
question had never occurred to him, that Roddy 
would decline the mission and the fortune, even 
if he must perforce inherit the acres. And yet 
this had come about, and something seemed 
suddenly wiped out of his life. The day looked 
grey and sombre, and the future that must now 
be left in other hands, seemed inglorious. 

He had not thought in these few weeks to 
have leant so heavily upon Roddy. He went 
out into the great hall, pacing up and down, 
under the eyes of the old Lavilles. 

It seemed hard that heaven should have sent 
him such an heir and thus unaccountably 
snatched his hopes away. 

And the old Lavilles, looking solemnly down 
from their coats of armour, held out no conso- 
lation to his heart. 

There came a sound of wheels upon the gravel 
outside, and the old man paused. 

Then as Roddy came in, he drew himself up 
and held out his hand. 

“ So you have grown tired of town ? ” he asked. 

Roddy was silent. 

“ I — had hoped you might have thrown your 
heart into the work.” 

“ I am sorry.” 


271 


The Manitoban 


“Trevelyan has written to me. You have 
talked it over. You will not help us? ” 

“ I am sorry. I have been here too long. I 
don’t know why I came. I have been ” 

The old man held up his hand. 

“ I understand all that,” he said, and Roddy 
flushed. “Your visit has been a pleasure to 
me. You have been welcome. When do you 
return ? ” 

“ To-morrow.” 

“ From Liverpool?” 

“ Yes.” 

“You are going back to London to-night I 
suppose.” 

Roddy nodded. 

They were fighters, the old Lavilles, and they 
looked down from the walls. 

The old man might have been speeding the 
acquaintance of an hour. 

He held out his hand. 

“ Good-bye, Roddy. Perhaps we may not 
meet again ? ” 

Roddy stared at him. What could he say? 
He took the outstretched hand. 

“ Good-bye, sir. I have been proud to know 
you.” 

And the last he saw of Trevelyan was on the 
steps of the Dorrington Club, eager and wistful. 

Roddy waved his hand from the cab. And 
27 2 


The Book of His Kingdom 

as they steamed out of St. Pancras he lowered 
the carriage window. 

His eyes were upon disappearing London, 
but the fresh wind came to him as a message 
from the prairie. And leaning back in the 
carriage he sighed contentedly. 


IS 


273 




V 







V 


The afternoon was beginning to grow grey 
and there were shadows in the kitchen. 

The Lukes were all away at a neighbouring 
festivity, and only Hope remained to keep the 
house. 

Charlie stood looking down into her eyes. 

He had just come from the trail, and his fur 
coat was powdered with frost. His cutter was 
outside, the pony hitched loosely to the well- 
post. 

From the stoop of his shoulders he would 
seem to have been pleading, and Hope, leaning 
back, was looking at him with eyes half-fright- 
ened. 

They were not such glad eyes as those of a 
year ago, and there was more knowledge in 
them. 

She stood against the wall, her open hands 
pressed upon it on either side, and she seemed 
to have caught her breath. 

“ I can’t,” she said, “ I can’t.” 

“ Oh, and why not? Why not?” 

He was poor now, cutting wood for his living; 

277 


The Manitoban 


and life mattered very little to him, so that he 
might pluck what joys he found upon the way. 

“ Why not?” 

There was something of the old caress in his 
voice. 

“Why not?” 

And indeed, why not? He had been good to 
her, this Englishman ; he had that in him which 
was different from these Canadians who sur- 
rounded her and shrugged their shoulders. He 
had told her she was pretty and had been tender 
to her. 

Then why not ? 

And Roddy was far away, and had not written, 
and by all accounts had become a great man in 
his own country. He would never come back. 

And why was she thinking of Roddy all so 
suddenly, and what indeed had he to do with 
the way of her life ? Why, very little since those 
old days that were so hard to believe in now. 
Yet her cheeks flushed and she looked down at 
the shabby floor. 

“ I can’t,” she said again. 

Charlie took a step towards her and laid his 
hand upon her arm. It was a strong young arm 
and resisted him, and it was pleasant to over- 
come it. He held her hand. 

“We could be very happy. Why delay? ” 

She thought of the slow winter months, the 
278 


The Book of His Kingdom 

old round of toil, the little pleasure that came to 
her in these long empty years. And she was 
young and made surely for enjoyment. 

“ Come now,” said Charlie, and took her other 
hand. “ Come now. It is not far to go. It is 
very easy.” 

She escaped his eyes, looking round the 
shanty, but there was none to tell her nay ; for 
old John Wesley was looking in another 
direction, and the big Bible lay covered with a 
cloth. Through the window stretched the 
plains, snow-clad and solitary. 

“ Come now,” said Charlie, and bent closer. 

So they stood for a minute. 

Then he left her hands and threw her cloak 
about her shoulders. 

She was very pale, but he put his hand upon 
her lips and gathered her to his side. 

“ Who shall hinder us? ” he asked. 


279 


























































































































































































































































































































































































































































VI 


There are days in life when events would 
seem to march with one accord, working out 
an appointed end, with no apparent effort at 
concealment. And on such a day, Roddy left 
the train at Carroll, with the smell of the frost 
in his nostrils, and his eyes satisfied at last with 
the great grey plains about him. 

He stretched himself, glad to be alive, and 
glad to be back in Manitoba on this winter day. 
In his fur coat, he stepped out into the yard, 
intending to go across to the livery stable ; but 
on the way met Blackett, seated on empty 
bobsleighs and about to drive out of town. 

He pulled up, staring at Roddy in some 
amazement. 

Roddy laughed and held out a hand to him. 

“Come back, you see. Your England 
couldn’t hold me.” 

They shook hands, and Blackett stood twirl- 
ing the reins in his hand, and looking at Roddy. 

He guessed at something of the history that 
lay behind this sudden return, and found it not 
displeasing. 

283 


The Manitoban 

“ So you got tired of it. And what of the 
schemes?” 

Roddy shook his head. 

“ Give me this,” he said, and looked down the 
frozen street and beyond. 

“ Where are you driving ? ” he asked presently. 

“ To the bush. Camping there just now. 
Will you come ? ” 

Roddy nodded, the desire to be rid of towns 
strong within him, and they drove out upon the 
trail. 

The snow lay in white drifts on either side. 
The sky was blue and pale, but on the horizons 
grew blurred and grey. 

“You’ve been having rough weather, I guess,” 
he said. 

Blackett nodded. 

“ It has been a bad month in the open,” he 
replied, and laid his whip about the horse’s 
flanks. 

Half an hour later he pulled up. 

Carroll lay behind them, a speck on the plains. 

“ I think we had better walk a bit,” he said, 
and for a while they trudged in the horse’s wake. 

“ It’s cold,” said Roddy. 

Blackett looked at the sky. 

“ It’s a nasty day altogether,” he said. “ It’s 
lucky there’s not a wind, Roddy.” 

Roddy nodded. 


284 


The Book of His Kingdom 

The feel of the snow was good after London 
streets and sheltered English lanes. 

It was the country for a man, this, the country 
for hot blood and a clear eye. 

He thrust his hands deeper into his coat 
pockets and strode with rising spirits. 

Presently he turned gravely to Blackett: 

“ It’s good to be back, eh? ” he asked. 

Blackett smiled. 

They were comrades in their love for the 
plains. 

“ They all come back,” he said. 

Roddy filled his chest. 

“A fellow can breathe here,” he said. “A 
fellow can breathe here without feeling he’s sort 
of borrowing somebody else’s air.” 

Along the southern horizon lay a ribbon of 
bush, dark between the grey of the sky and the 
grey of the snow. 

Presently they mounted the sleighs again and 
Blackett put the horses at a gallop. 

The black strip grew bigger and more clearly 
defined, and against the background of bush, 
outpost trunks of stunted oaks and frozen 
poplars began to assert themselves. 

“Where’s the camp?” asked Roddy. 

“ Mine? Down there in the dry bush.” 

Blackett pointed with his whip. 

“ Anyone else in with you? ” 

285 


The Manitoban 


“ Two of the Luke boys, half a mile beyond, 
an’ West, about a mile this side.” 

“ West?” 

“Yes, chopping cord wood for his food and 
whiskey.” 

“ He’s not married?” 

Blackett stared. 

“ Married ? Good Lord, no,” he laughed. 

Roddy was silent. Then, 

“ Show me his shanty,” he said. 

As they neared the bush the trail grew harder, 
since it was the chief road into the timber. On 
either side of it, stumps, half buried, proclaimed 
that they were leaving the open prairie. 

Grey recesses glimmered about them and 
serried arrays of frozen tree trunks stretched 
monotonously on either side, blending further 
back into a grey indistinctness. 

Three foxes at the trail side looked at them 
doubtfully, ready for flight, and once an old 
timber wolf, lurking among the trees, stole 
deeper into shadow. 

The green poplars gave place now to a 
melancholy world of dry wood, stretching death- 
like into the sky above them — old trees that a 
dozen fires had left naked and desolate. It was 
warmer, here in the bush, but the silence was as 
profound, and the ring of the runners echoed 
emptily about them. Then a clearing appeared 
286 


The Book of His Kingdom 

at their left, and beyond it a little shack, put 
roughly together, and apparently deserted. 

“That’s West’s,” said Blackett, and Roddy 
noted its position. 

A mile further on they drew up at a similar 
building, but one of greater comfort and built 
with more care. 

Roddy looked at it approvingly. 

“ You’ve done yourself well, Blackett.” 

“Yes, I’m pretty comfortable and getting 
quite a lot of wood out, and it’s snug living here 
in this weather, though it’s a bit lonely when the 
teams have gone out.” 

“ Any teams in to-day? ” 

Blackett shook his head. 

“ Too cold,” he said. 

Roddy went in, and they had some tea ; and 
since Roddy had not lunched, Blackett gave him 
a loaf and some cold pork. 

Roddy sat on a stool, cutting off portions of 
the provisions with his clasp knife. 

“ By Jove, that’s a good meal,” he said at last, 
handing back a remnant of the bread pathetic in 
bereavement. “The best meal I’ve had for a 
year, Blackett. ’Tis really.” 

Blackett laughed. 

“ I thought you would come back,” he said, 
and they sat for a while, talking of the farm and 
the summer’s crop. 


287 


The Manitoban 


Then Roddy rose to his feet. 

“You’ll forgive my going?” 

“ Going? You’ll stop the night surely? ” 

Roddy shook his head. 

“ I must get back to the old place,” he said. 
“ I’ve made up my mind to sleep there to-night.” 
And he was obdurate. Blackett rose to his feet. 

“ Have your own way,” he said. “ I’ll drive 
you there.” 

But Roddy forbade him. 

“ No, I want to walk,” he said. “ It’s only ten 
miles an’ I’ll get there soon after dark; an’ I 
want — I want to have a talk with West before 
I go.” 

Blackett held out his hand. 

“ Good-bye, Roddy. I am glad you have 
come back.” 

Roddy followed the trail until he reached the 
first clearing, where Charlie’s shack had stood, 
and crossing it came to the door. 

The spot was wrapped in silence, and in the 
waning light looked strangely cheerless. 

The door yielded to his hand. He stepped 
into the shanty. There was no window, and in 
its absolute shadow only the faint reek of 
tobacco came to Roddy’s senses. Then as his 
eyes grew accustomed to the darkness he saw 
that the stove was cold, and contained white 
ashes. 


288 


The Book of His Kingdom 

In the frying pan was some frozen fat, and a 
crust of bread lay on the earth floor. 

A saw hung upon the wall and a couple of 
axes were leaning up in one corner. The bed 
was disordered, and upon the table lay the 
remnants of a meal. 

Inside the door was a pail of water with a 
covering of ice upon it. 

Roddy went out and looked into the stable. 
This, too, was empty, save for a half used bag 
of oats and a rough pile of hay. 

It was sod roofed and banked with manure, and 
over the whole the unbroken stillness brooded 
like a burden. Through the trees behind the 
shanty glimmered a trail, striking apparently, by 
a shorter route, into the prairie beyond; and 
this Roddy took, glad to have left these sombre 
buildings behind him. The track threaded 
sinuously among the trees and Roddy could see 
upon it the traces of a single horse between the 
runners of a cutter. 

The afternoon was growing dim now and he 
walked fast, anxious to be out upon the plains 
and on his way home. 

The trees grew thinner about him, gathering 
themselves presently into little clumps with 
wide spaces of snow between them. Once he 
stumbled upon a hidden stump that the runners 
had dodged, but soon was beyond the boundary 
19 289 


The Manitoban 

of bush and upon a trail that would seem to be 
leading him right. 

The blue had died out of the sky, which was 
now a cup of grey, blending with these great 
spaces of snow, and through the hush of the 
frost no sound fell upon his ears. 

The cold had deepened with the approach of 
dusk till the plains lay crushed in its grip and 
Roddy striding over the snow seemed alone in 
the gift of life. 

But through this wilderness he trod with a 
light heart, humming an old song and every 
step bringing him nearer to home and Hope. 

He wondered why he had ever gone away and 
how, for a moment, that other life had seemed 
good in his eyes, and knew that at last he was set 
firmly in the path that was right. For now he 
was at home, with never a chimney between 
himself and Hudson’s Bay, at home in the arms 
of this great grim mother of his, greeting him 
with so frosty an embrace. 

The light faded and then a sudden pain fell 
upon his lips and forehead, as though one had 
pressed cold steel softly among the finest end- 
ings of his nerves. It came swiftly and lasted 
but a moment, and Roddy knew it was only the 
faintest ripple of wind, creeping lazily down the 
sky. 

But it brought him back to the trail and the 
290 


The Book of His Kingdom 

moment, and he looked about him keenly with 
observant eyes. 

The plains had been a dead grey, streaked 
only by pallid drifts, but now the snow was 
rising in little clouds, like puffs of smoke, toss- 
ing up and dying away. 

He quickened his stride, and then for the 
first time saw a cutter far down the trail, crawl- 
ing towards him. 

And this trail led only to Charlie’s shanty. 

It was a cold evening to be out for a drive, 
and Roddy wondered what urgent business had 
taken him from the bush on such a day as this. 

And, again, this relentless hand playing softly 
among his nerves. He pulled his cap closer 
about his eyes and ears, and swung on, and the 
cutter grew clearer to his vision; grew clearer 
until he saw that the driver was not alone. 

Who then was his companion on so bitter a 
trail ? 

He could only see as yet two huddled fur-clad 
figures, and a lean horse floundering heavily, 
but already some presage of misfortune came 
upon his spirit like sorrow. 

The song died from his lips and his eyes grew 
hard. Then England and civilization became 
as though they were not, and their graces fell 
away from him. For the drama before him was 
old ere they were born, and was to be played 
291 


The Manitoban 


n©w among the frost and silence that had 
marked the beginning of time. 

So they met at last, and for a moment they 
regarded him unwittingly. 

Then he pulled off his cap, and they recog- 
nized him, Hope with cheeks that grew suddenly 
red and desperately white, and Charlie with a 
pitiful gaiety that died quickly from his eyes. 

And the trail led only to one shanty, and it 
was evening. 

Nor were any words needed to spell out this 
story that lay plain to Roddy’s gaze, that indeed 
he had guessed already. And what lie was there 
but would meet with mockery from the great 
stillness that surrounded them ? 

And so they stood facing one another, 
Roddy’s hand upon the bridle, and his eyes 
upon Hope, and Charlie staring dumbly at 
Roddy and none of them speaking, and only the 
wind breaking the silence with its heraldings of 
storm. 

Then Roddy became glad because God had 
given him strength so that he could crush this 
man before him. 

But his eyes never left Hope’s face. 

“ Well ? ” he asked at last. 

She shrank back into the seat of the cutter, 
among the surrounding furs, looking at him with 
eyes that were afraid. 

292 


The Book of H is Kingdom 

But they were frank eyes still, and confessed 
both sin and love. 

“ Where are you going? ” 

“Where are you going?” he repeated, and 
they looked at him fearfully, standing there 
before them, at the gates of his kingdom, with 
eyes that would not be denied. 

Charlie tried to speak, but Roddy for the first 
time looked him full in the face, and the words 
were wiped from his lips. 

A sudden passion to kill him mounted into 
Roddy’s heart, and then the storm closed about 
them with a shout, with a wind that came up 
from the deepest fastnesses of frost, and lashed 
the snow into a fog before their eyes. 

Roddy bent down over Hope. 

“ Will you come? ” he said, “ Will you come? 
There is not much time. Will you come?” 

Then she held out her hands, and neither 
sobbed nor fainted, but looked at him now with- 
out fear, and 

“ Take me, Roddy,” she said. 

So he lifted her from the cutter and laid his 
arm about her, and they faced the darkness. 

And what if ten thousand blizzards swept the 
plain? 

For Roddy knew that he had come at last to 
his kingdom and held heaven in his arms. 

The roar of the wind forbade speech, but it 

293 


The Manitoban 

was enough to feel her yielded to his side, to be 
her tower against the night. And in the same 
moment he felt, and knew also that she felt, a 
sudden sense of that bodily congruity, which 
is love’s first foundation. For here to-night 
they were one, children of the same life, the 
same outlook, the same plains. England had 
been well enough, but here he was face to face 
with an experience that England could never 
have given him, combating the currents that 
lay beneath existence, that the old world 
skimmed and was not called upon to battle. 

And as they went his spirits rose to their 
supremest conflict. 

For the primal passions were out to-night, 
murder and frost and death. 

He looked over his shoulder. 

The cutter, backed into a drift by the fright- 
ened horse, lay broken and twisted, soon to be 
buried, and Charlie slunk behind them through 
the storm, loth to be left alone. 

And Roddy laughed and knew that whatever 
the issue might be, love was abroad in the fight 
and would not brook defeat. 

He drew Hope closer against him, sheltering 
her, as much as might be, from the terror of the 
wind. 

The snow dashed in his face, but he shook it 
from his eyes, and held on, strong and confident. 

294 


The Book of His Kingdom 

And presently, as he was sure they would, 
they stumbled upon a fence; and, stooping 
down, he laid his hand upon the wire. The 
chances were that in time it would lead them to 
some building, and he bent his lips to Hope’s 
ear and encouraged her. 

Foot by foot they crept along the fence, 
pausing at each post for breath and to give 
Hope a snatched moment of rest. 

Behind them, through gaps in the mist, they 
caught occasional glimpses of Charlie, looming 
indistinctly, crawling in their tracks. 

And then a time came when he was blotted 
out, and crept no more into view, and Hope 
leaned heavily upon Roddy. 

They reached the corner of the field, but no 
shanty lay near them and Roddy dared not go 
far from the fence. 

Hope was growing very sleepy, she said, and 
was quite happy. And so they took the other 
side of the field, more slowly now, clinging 
closer to the wire, beating step by step against a 
wall of snow. 

The night spun out into hours and days, into 
years of ceaseless storm, and still the fence 
stretched interminably before them, Hope 
leaning on Roddy and Roddy with bent 
shoulders leaning against the wind. 

Then there came a time of doubting into 
295 


The Manitoban 


Roddy’s mind, and then long hours when he 
stopped thinking, and carried Hope in his arms, 
and struggled; and then a time when death 
grew sweet, because it would bring rest and 
sleep, and then a time when he wondered about 
heaven, and whether God would forgive him 
because he would have slain Charlie ; and then 
aeons of dogged mechanical strife. 


296 










VII 


Frida Ericsdotta was not rightwise, and sat 
in her shanty, rocking herself by the stove. 

And what was it to her that two people stood 
looking into each other’s eyes by the light of her 
solitary candle ; looking into each other’s eyes, 
and speaking as though she were not? 

They had come in to shelter from the storm 
and were welcome, so that they would let her 
alone with her thoughts. 

She thrust more wood into the fire and talked 
to herself, with her eyes upon the little dancing 
flames. They were lovers, she supposed, and 
she knew what that meant; for once she had 
had lovers of her own, who had talked to her 
tenderly, even as this big man was talking to the 
girl with the shining eyes. 

Then Hope held Roddy from her when he 
would have kissed her and shook her head. 

“ You must go back,” she said. 

“ Go back ? ” 

Roddy did not understand. 

“ He is out there — somewhere — fallen down — 
by the fence. He will die, Roddy.” 

299 


The Manitoban 


And Roddy was in his kingdom, and safe, and 
her eyes were upon him, her awakened eyes, 
bright as he had never seen them before. 

“ Go back? ” he asked. 

Surely this could not be duty’s way. And 
then with a sudden revulsion of feeling he 
remembered that he had come back to build 
with the motto of the Lavilles in his heart. 

The storm echoed about the shanty. 

“ It’s my repentance,” she said a little breath- 
lessly. 

Then he gathered her to his arms with hot 
kisses. 

“But you’ll go?” she asked and he looked 
long into her eyes. 

“ Why, yes,” he said at last, and took up his 
cap. 


300 
































































































































VIII 


And with the romance must necessarily end 
the story, though indeed it has but led to gates 
through which the best of futures shines. For 
surely never in this round world’s history has a 
fairer country waited for the truest type of 
commonwealth. May the builders build well. 

And if for the purposes of satisfying curiosity 
two scenes must be included to round off the 
whole, one of them would be a long hall, built 
of wood (it will be brick next year) crowded with 
men, lean faced and earnest ; and Roddy would 
be on the platform, winning his way into their 
hearts rather by a certain directness of utterance 
than any eloquence of language, winning his 
way slowly maybe, but winning. 

And the other would be a summer afternoon 
with the sunlight on the wheat. 

“ It’s a good life,” says Roddy. “ I am glad 
you did not give it up.” 

Charlie looks at him with steady eyes. 

“Yes, it’s the best life going, even for a 
cripple.” 

Then he glances at the maimed arm and its 
iron hand and laughs. 


303 


The Manitoban 

“ But I’m getting along first rate and the hook 
is quite useful.” 

“ And she is coming out to you? ” 

“ In the fall.” 

“Shake hands on it. You’re a very lucky 
fellow.” 

And presently as Charlie leaves them, striding 
down the trail, Roddy and Hope stand at the 
doorway, looking after him, looking out over the 
bright fields. 

Roddy is more than ever contented to-day, for 
Hope, half proud and half shy, and a little 
frightened, has just told him a secret. 

And in a measure, it is the same message as 
that of the wheat, and in the promise of both 
life looks very good. 

And if there be any who have read this story 
and guessed its parable, let Roddy stand before 
them as a young and lustier people, upon whom 
in days unborn our more decadent East shall 
come to lean ; the true Heir, bred of the old 
traditions, but the r product of a new and simpler 
life ; the true Heir, sound and sane and intrepid, 
facing the future in the might of an optimism, 
upon which in years to come shall be built the 
Kingdom of God. 


THE END 

3°4 


r ;a 










